In answer to the question how far back I’m going to reach the bowls-are-an-honor theory: Fifty years.

When we finish 11-1 or something like that, I’ll be quite happy with the honor of the major bowl to which we would then be invited. And I’d still wish that it would not be diluted with a slew of minor bowls for runner-up teams that weren’t at our level.

If I’m on a “bandwagon,” it’s the lonliest bandwagon in history, since I appear to be the only rider.

Obviously there’s a market for these minor bowls; that’s why they came into existence. I don’t dispute that, and I don’t dispute that the money they generate for the school will be put to good use.

The core of our disagreement is how one views the basic paradigm for bowl selection. You seem to view it as a chance, enjoyable to fans and players alike, to extend the season and help the athletic department’s finances. That is the modern and the more popular view. My take on it is that bowls ought to be what they once were, to wit, honors to be given to those few schools that compiled outstanding records and could plausibly be in or near the national championship discussion.

All our diffenernces come down to that. I will say that, to the extent extending the season is an important reason for this proliferation of minor bowls, there’s a better way to go about it. If schools, players and fans want to extend the season, the way to do it is, well, EXTEND THE SEASON.

As things stand now, we don’t even play all the teams in the ACC. My suggestion would be to forget these minor bowls and just add four weeks to the ACC football season. It would still end before the conference basketball season really gets underway. In terms of team practice, player and fan enjoyment, exposure, and revenue enhancement, it would be better than a single minor bowl. And, although this may be important only to me, it would end the pretense that bowl selection is honorific — a pretense that is not only mostly false but poorly disguised in any event.

“This is about the fourth or fifth post I’ve read of yours where you claim that Carolina doesn’t deserve a bowl.
On what are you basing this on???”

On the criteria for bowl selection that prevailed not all that long ago, and that in my view were more credible and worthwhile than what we have now, which is simply advertising run amok.

In my view, bowls should be reserved, as for a long time they were, as a reward for powerhouse teams after an outstanding season. We are not a powerhouse team and we did not have an outstanding season. We had a pretty good season, that’s it. If our basketball team performed the way our football team did, we’d all be tearing our hair out.

“The Heels finished 8-4 with wins over Va. Tech, Miami, Boston College, UConn and East Carolina, all of which are bowl teams.”

And two of which, at most, arguably deserve to be in bowls (Virginia Tech and Miami). The fact that the other, modestly successful teams got bowl bids doesn’t prove that they, or we, earned it. It’s just further proof that bowls have become dumbed-down.

Last I looked, there were 34 bowls hosting 68 teams. Could it possibly be the case that 68 teams are deserving of the honor of a bowl? I doubt it.

What’s going on here is that, several years ago, some advertising executive figured out that there was money to be made doing bowl games. Therefore, sure as shootin’, bowl games proliferated like cudzu. And have about as much aesthetic appeal.

When everybody in the class gets an “A,” that doesn’t tell you that everybody has become a great student. What it tells you is that grades have been watered down to the point of meaninglessness. A variant of the same phenomenon is going on with bowls. Only I don’t like watered down standards. I don’t like them in class, on the field, or anywhere near the University which is my alma mater and which I so admire. You don’t get improved performance by indugling watered down standards. You get it by demanding high standards.

In addition, the benefits of being in a bowl are oversold. It is said that it provides extra practice for the players, and so it does, but how much good is that going to do when the season doesn’t start for another eight months? It is said that it provides exposure. But that is doubtful. Who’s really going to watch this game other than (1) diehard Pitt and UNC fans and (2) people hopelessly addicted to college football of any kind — people to whom one team and one game merge seamlessly into the next?

The one advantage a bowl does provide is money. Reasonable minds can differ on whether the money is worth it. In my view, it isn’t.

Finally, I don’t agree that improvement should be a significant criterion for bowl selection. Were it otherwise, a team that was 1-11 last year but 5-7 this year would have a stronger claim to bowl selection than we do.

When you have 34 bowls, almost all of them recent, ad-driven concoctions, no particular bowl could, or does, mean much — death by dilution, as it were. It’s precisely because I’m a Carolina fan that, when my school goes to a bowl, I WANT IT TO MEAN SOMETHING.

VT and Clemson both were 6-2 in the ACC, UNC was 4-4 so those two had to go ahead of the Heels. In theory VT or Clemson should have gone to either the Chick-fil-A or Gator Bowls. Champs had the option to take Miami based on their 5-3 record over UNC’s 4-4. No one wants BC so they get shunted to the back of the line. UNC and FSU were both 4-4 therefore Music City had the option to take either and would have taken UNC sending FSU to Charlotte.

However when you bump FSU to the Gator it pushes Clemson down. The Champs still wanted Miami and could take them because there was only one game difference between those two. The only other team at that point who could have jumped Clemson was BC who no one wants. So Clemson has to go to Nashville leaving UNC holding the bag in Charlotte.

It has been pointed out that FSU vs WVU could have still happened according to the rules just in Charlotte and not Jacksonville. The Gator Bowl, looking out for their own interests and with an expiring contract with the ACC holding zero interest in doing right by them basically did what they wanted to do.