OT: D1

[IUPbigINDIANS]

The games are relics. There is no point to play them beyond ones used for the playoffs.

Coaches used to love bowl season because it gave them an extra month of practice.

Now, they lose a huge percentage of their team between graduation and portal departures.

The time is probably better spent recruiting the mercenaries.

Not to mention it lets the athletes focus on their academics. That's most important to these football factories lol.

[Fightingscot82]

It doesn't make sense for a lot of teams. I was reading somewhere that teams more often than not lose money by participating in them.

Correct. Depending on the conference, sometimes that money passes through the conference and the school only gets a portion of the gross payout kind of like March Madness money.

But with the acceptance comes a contract and minimum expectations to earn that payout including mandatory ticket purchases, parades, media, etc. Then you get to the stadium and realize how many Toledo fans are willing to travel to Birmingham, Alabama - and how many Birmingham, Alabama residents want to see Toledo.

[Fightingscot82]

Michigan State just got a $401 million donation from the founder of Acrisure insurance. Yes, that Acrisure. Here's the breakdown:

- $290 million for athletics facilities
- $100 million to establish a group to diversify and innovate athletic revenue streams to be more independent
- $11 million for academic scholarships related to business and entrepreneurship

The one admirable thing about it is that the donors refused to have their name added to anything and said their donation can't fund the recent football coach buyout.

[Ship69]

I think they’ll probably start with tweaks to the way P4 conferences break ties. You can’t have 7-5 Duke in a conference championship given what those games can end up meaning.

It wouldn’t shock me if conference championship games are eventually done away with altogether.

They brought it on themselves by having one-division conferences of 16, 17, and 18 teams with byzantine tiebreaker systems. If you're going to be too big to have a round robin schedule, then you need to have divisions. If the divisions prove to be unbalanced, tweak them. Imagine a couple of seasons back if you'd said Indiana would be a power in the Big 10's Eastern Division. Penn State doesn't play Ohio State, Oregon, or Indiana next season. Going to one division did nothing to solve schedule imbalance in the B1G.

[Ship69]

Most of the HCs commented they are no longer in favor of conference title games given the playoff. Season is already way too long.

But, they give the pimps another big payday.

Meanwhile, three-loss Alabama gets in after looking bad for a month and getting pounded in their title game. It's a farce as ESPN televises the weekly CFP ranking baloney and also has extensive ties to the SEC. A so-called journalistic entity should never be involved financially with teams it is covering, but that boundary was knocked down a long time ago. Our society, from the top of government on down, is increasingly a morass of conflict-of-interest corruption.

[iupgroundhog]

Michigan State just got a $401 million donation from the founder of Acrisure insurance. Yes, that Acrisure. Here's the breakdown:

- $290 million for athletics facilities
- $100 million to establish a group to diversify and innovate athletic revenue streams to be more independent
- $11 million for academic scholarships related to business and entrepreneurship

The one admirable thing about it is that the donors refused to have their name added to anything and said their donation can't fund the recent football coach buyout.

I realize people have the freedom to support whatever they want, but that is a sad commentary on values at a a great academic institution. It's the cart before the horse.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Meanwhile, three-loss Alabama gets in after looking bad for a month and getting pounded in their title game. It's a farce as ESPN televises the weekly CFP ranking baloney and also has extensive ties to the SEC. A so-called journalistic entity should never be involved financially with teams it is covering, but that boundary was knocked down a long time ago. Our society, from the top of government on down, is increasingly a morass of conflict-of-interest corruption.

I'd like to see Tulane and James Madison - combined to form an all-star team - and still be a 21-point dog to Notre Dame.

[Ship69]

I really really thought The Overrated State University would snatch the win in some fluke manner because Curt had more than one fluke loss that snuffed out what looked like a win…at IUP. I guess he learned.

He might have learned, and the OSU guy missing the chip-shot field goal didn't hurt, either. OSU has to learn something about calling plays inside the 10.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

He might have learned, and the OSU guy missing the chip-shot field goal didn't hurt, either. OSU has to learn something about calling plays inside the 10.

A lot of teams do. They all try and get too cute.

Smash the damn ball a couple times.

[ctrabs74]

The Nits are going to the Pinstripe Bowl in The Bronx…supposedly vs Clemson but it should be Fail2Pitt.

For all we know, it could've been Fail2Pitt, but I'd guess Nardoofus threw a fit and said, "Nah, we're good. We'll play in a third-world country against Whatsamata U before we play State Penn."

[ctrabs74]

Doesn’t the ACC get an auto bid?

Top five conference champions among all D1 conferences, not just the Power Three-and-a-Half (the ACC representing the "half" portion ... more like half-a**ed, but that's another story).

[ctrabs74]

Notre Dame wasn't alone.

So far (7) teams have declined to play in a (non-playoff) bowl game.

I know of Notre Dame, Iowa State and Kansas State opting out (with the latter two owing $500K to the Big 12 for backing out of their conference's bowl contracts). Did I miss others?

[ctrabs74]

Not for nothing, but LSU will face Houston in the Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium in Houston on Dec. 27 ... the two teams already agreed to play each other at NRG Stadium in the first week of the 2027 season. (And, no, Loony Kiffin won't be coaching the Bayou Bungles in their bowl game.)

[Fightingscot82]

If this gets rid of the Abreva Genital Warts Bowl featuring Rice and Louisiana Tech and other bowls like it, so be it.

[TheBigCat2192]

Of all teams it looks like Utah might be the first to get in bed with private equity, beating the Big Ten or the dissatisfied ACC schools.