Earlier this week, it appeared UNC was a lock for the Music City Bowl in Nashville which was fine considering the Heels did not do themselves in favors by losing to NCSU on Saturday. Well they were a lock until FSU’s Bobby Bowden announced he was retiring and the Gator Bowl decided to extend a middle finger in the general direction of the ACC by saying they were taking FSU come hell or high water. Gator Bowl officials believe(and correctly so) Bowden’s last game is going to be a financial and ratings boon. Add the extra twist that FSU will be taking on Bowden’s first team, West Virginia and you have a matchup made for the empty headed hype machine that is the ESPNized college football media.
Since FSU is 4-4 in the ACC, having them jump several spots in line mucks up the entire ACC bowl picture. The biggest loser in all this shuffling? North Carolina as pointed out by Joe Gilgio.
The bowl business is fluid and confusing, but the big loser in Gator Bowl’s power play for Florida State stands to be North Carolina.
Last Saturday’s loss to N.C. State cost North Carolina a bowl trip to Florida, and the fine print also could cost the Tar Heels a trip out of their home state.
A clause in the Gator and Champs Sports bowls’ contracts with the ACC allows both games to pass on the loser of Saturday’s conference championship game between Clemson and Georgia Tech. In essence, the clause offers those games a loophole for the ACC’s “one-win” rule protecting bowl-eligible teams from getting leapfrogged by teams with two fewer league victories.
Because of the clause, Georgia Tech or Clemson likely will drop down the bowl ladder to the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., and push the Tar Heels back to the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte.
On one hand, the Car Bowl is not a bad destination for UNC since it will be a de facto home game. However, it is a step below the Music City Bowl. Also, UNC went to Charlotte last season and it would be nice for the players(and fans) if they could go to a nice city like Nashville for the bowl game. Plus, it appeared UNC was heading for a matchup with an SEC(likely UK) which is better than playing another Big East school.
Unfortunately for UNC, the forces that govern bowl placements and the Gator Bowl’s insistence on being Bowden’s last stand leaves UNC out in the cold. Which is insane to me given I look at everything through the college basketball lens. It is illogical to me that an 8-4 UNC team could be sent to the back of the line so a 6-6 FSU team can have a nice New Years Day slot just because Bowden is hanging it up. I agree with Carolina March, maybe we should go back and award UNC the 1997 NCAA title since Dean Smith was retiring. Oh, wait, we can’t do that, you know why? Because in college basketball it is a system based on your on the court results not whether you can bring the most fans to the game.
But what can you do? As I stated, UNC made this bed to some extent so now they will have to sleep in it. That still does not take away from the unfairness of sending UNC to Charlotte just to give a retiring coach a going away part in Jacksonville. What will likely be so annoying about this is this is not even the same FSU team we have been watching all year. The Seminoles lost QB Christian Ponder and the defense is still putrid as all get out. As far as the football goes, it stands to be a horrible game with WVU likely blowing the doors of the Noles. None of that matters though. All that does is getting Bowden on the sideline for the media hype and fan interest(cha-ching!) From a business standpoint it is tough to blame the Gator Bowl for making the move. From a football/fairness standpoint it sucks which leaves us with only one option:
GO MOUNTAINEERS!!!!
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As a Charlottean (Charlottanean, Charlottan?), I’m not really bummed about the possibility of going back to BoA stadium. Lets face facts: the economy is down, gas prices are getting ready to go up, and a game in Florida would not be as heavily attended by UNC fans.
Yeah, playing the Car bowl will basically be a home game–but it could also be an opportunity to let a lot of UNC fans (b/c Charlotte really is a Tar Heel town) see us win a bowl game. It would be a great money maker for Charlotte, and I for one like the idea of keeping some bowl game money in the local economy.
West Virginia fans will view the game as:
The Man we shouldn’t have Fired vs. The Moron we shouldn’t have Hired
From a standpoint of economics you can’t blame the Gator Bowl for making a smart business decision. We forget that the bowls don’t exist to please fans, players, or coaches, but to make money. That’s a big reason there is no college football playoff.
For Carolina it does stink from a standpoint of prestige and I guess the monotony of going back to Charlotte. I’m a Charlotte native living in Louisville and was thinking about making the three hour drive to Nashville. Then again, I like it for my hometown and for the fact that more Heels fans will get to see the game.
Yes, the Gator Bowl is looking out for the Gator Bowl, but how is it any worse than what the Chick-Fil-A and Champs Bowls are doing?
The Bowl formerly known as the Peach gets 2nd choice (actually 1st choice since the championship game winner goes to the BCS) and they are intent on taking Virginia Tech. You would think that Clemson would be a logical choice here if they lose the ACCCG, given the rabid fan base and proximity to Atlanta. But I guess the bond of poultry is too strong, and the Hokies will pokey to the ATL.
Meanwhile, the Champs Sports Bowl continues to seek relevance by drooling over Miami. The Hurricanes are a national name and are fawned over by ESPN, so it looks like the Swagger will be invading Orlando instead of the ACCCG loser. This means either Clemson or GT will fall the maximum allowable number of spots to the Music City Bowl – that’s a pretty royal screwing, too, especially for Clemson.
Then there is the yearly rogering of an 8-4 (5-3) Boston College team by being banished to the Suckjob.com Bowl.
If UNC is relegated to Charlotte, it might actually be a pretty good doggoned game, since it will probably have the loser of Pitt and Cincy. As for the game itself, I will not be going because I have been to the last two in Charlotte and while it may be a Tar Heel town, it is a day trip for me. I was looking forward to actually going somewhere for a change.
Somehow the old sayings of “you get what you paid for” and “you reap what you sow” come to mind. The UVA game, the FSU and NC State second half performances come to mind. That’s THREE opportunities and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
^Exactly, if the Heels didn’t want to play in Charlotte for the second consecutive year then they should have finished with a record that is better than 8-4 and 4-4 in ACC. Can’t blame the bowls for being entrepreneurial, if you don’t like it win more….
Except they did win more than FSU. FSU certainly did not have a great season finishing 6-6 but they get moved up in line by factors that have nothing to do with on the field performance. This whole deal proves the bowls are just exhibition games. The Gator Bowl is getting FSU for the sheer media spectacle. So, yes UNC could have made it moot by winning more but we are not talking about them getting moved down so a team with a similar record could move up. I think they did enough to at least go to Nashville.
^Devil’s advocate would also say, but one of FSU’s 6 wins was against Carolina in Chapel Hill.
These are bowl selection committees we’re talking about here, any logic such as a better record is moot. Fannies in seats is the only thing that matters.
If it isn’t the Orange Bowl or another BCS bowl, who really cares? Having spent time in both places, my view is that Charlotte is a much better location than Nashville. If you don’t like what passes for country music these days, then there’s pretty much nothing else to do in downtown Nashville, where the restaurants are lousy and the hotels are not much to write home about either. A road trip to Charlotte is perfectly acceptable.
And such is the irony. If UNC beats FSU then FSU is not bowl eligble. Then again maybe UNC does not reel off four in a row, ends up 7-5 anyway and still in the Car Bowl.
HP and scl,
I disagree. Given the circumstances and how things have shaken out, we are exactly where we would have been at 10-2 or 6-6. Maybe, at 10-2, we would have been as attractive to the CFA Bowl as Va Tech, but it’s clear the Florida bowls want Florida teams. I think our record has very little to do with it. All the hand-wringling about the State game costing us bowl positioning is irrelevant.
So let me get this straight… the Champs Sports Bowl would rather take “swagger” and the U vs. FSU and Bobby Bowden in his last game?
Looks like if the Chicken bowl and Gator followed the bowl selection guidelines there would be no problem with FSU getting a florida bowl. Orlando wouldn’t be that much different in the grand scheme of things. Looks like the Gator, due to previous selection snafus and not being affiliated with the ACC next year, is saying screw you to the ACC.
Sucks for you guys. I would much rather go to Nashville than 2 years in a row in Cabaret Charlotte.
FWIW, I caught the last 10 minutes of Dave Glenn’s show and he was saying pretty much the same thing, that the CFA bowl essentially picking out of order (leapfrogging a team with a better conference finish) is contributing to this as well.
The whole Bowl System is a sham. Period. Thats why, to me, unless you are going to a BCS bowl, win loss record and final season rankings are more important than which bowl you go to. A conference title would also be nice, but that aint going to happen until we 1) learn how to score points against a UVA defense that can’t stop anybody… except John Shoop and 2) Stop playing the same weak, soft zone coverage that makes Russel Wilson look like a superstar every time he plays us. (Yes, I’m still mad…)
Certainly one team can’t control the overall politics of the bowl selection process, however, my point earlier was that if a team takes care of business on the field, they are generally rewarded with an “upgrade” if you will.
Playing in Charlotte in itself is not that bad, the stadium will be packed with fans, some who never get to go to UNC games, and it might help with recruiting in the western part of the state…….
Just to be picky, Bowden’s first head coaching job was at Samford. So, technically speaking the Papa Johns Bowl in Birgmingham would be a perfect fit and it would bring him to his hometown. Start that story.
i agree with some of you here. i care much more about the actual opponent than what “level” or “rank” bowl we end up.
so, if it is either pitt or cincy, i’m praying that cincy loses to pitt.
ooooooooh, a win over a highly ranked cincy would be a somewhat satisfying end to the season.
haha. from #5 in the nation to a loss to unc in charlotte in a matter of two games… that’d surely make that coach jump to notre dame.
beating cincy would be a 100x better than a meaningless win over kentucky (in football, that is).
Bobby Bowden’s last game is a much bigger story than whether or not some fringe top 25 team gets to play here or there. No one even remembers these games two years later, except for the diehard fanatics. UNC had a great season but it could have been even greater and they controlled that destiny against State, UVa and FSU. They can’t expect to be a big story now compared to Bobby’s last game.
I’m afraid I will be the lone dissenting voice here, and not in a way I expect to be popular.
What did we expect? Once bowls started proliferating as advertising mechanisms for corporations you might (or might not) have heard of, this was foreordained. Bowls used to be few in number (four or five), were played on New Year’s Day, and were tributes to powerhouse teams for having outstanding seasons.
No more.
I’m all for capitalism, believe me. My family has done plenty well by it. But it has its downsides, and a certain money-grubbing crassness is among them. We were (or would have been) plenty happy to go to some ersatz creation called the Music City Bowl. Now, however, since bowls are ALL about money, we’ll get kicked down the chain to some even more embarrassing “bowl.”
The truth of the matter is that, under the more credible and exacting criteria that used to prevail, NEITHER we nor Florida State should be participating in post-season play. We had a pretty good season. We lost to three dogs, but we won twice as many games as we lost, and we had a tremendous defense (to go with our tremendously mediocre offense). We are not a national power, and we would get our tails kicked by any team that is.
There are reasons to look upon our season as successful, and reasons to take a contrary view. Assuming for purposes of argument that it was in fact a successful season, no one could claim it was an outstanding one.
It follows that if, as I believe, bowls should reward excellent teams and not marginally successful ones, we were never deserving of what we thought we had. Having fleetingly “obtained” an invitation to one minor bowl (Music City) only because of the general dumbing-down of the concept of bowls to begin with, we are hardly in a position to complain that the same dumbing-down has now come back to bite us in the rear end with an afterthought invitation to an even more obscure event.
I’m sorry. I love Carolina. Among the many reasons I love it is that it has high standards, and repairs to those standards regardless of what others may do. It is those high standards I see ebbing away here.
rath, you’re right. i totally disagree with you (except for the thought that we shouldn’t complain).
bowls, even those outside of the top five or so, are generally a good thing. yes, they’re good for corporations. but they’re also good for coaches, players, schools and fans. if you don’t care for it, don’t worry about it. we all know these bowls at least provide more valuable practice time for our team, and bowls in general are opportunities for interesting match ups that you might not otherwise see.
I think the bowls are good for the fans (we get to see the Heels play, what is better than that?), for the school (a bowl equals money, exposure, and practice time), for the city (I like the fact that Charlotte might get a financial boost since I’m a North Carolinian), for the players (more exposure and a chance to do what they love, and they get to have a fun visit to a city they might not otherwise see). And the last point is probably the biggest. Bowl games are fun for pretty much everyone involved, at least until your team loses. Sure, I’m not going to go around boasting about winning the Tire Bowl or the “Insert Name Here”.com bowl, but it is still fun and allows me to extend my enjoyment of all things Carolina a little bit longer.
Bowl games have their purpose. Definitely match ups we wouldn’t see (heeled soul) and as numerous people have said good for many other reasons. Music City vs. Car Bowl?? Well for me living in Tennesee I should prefer Nashville, but both offer the same travel time or close to it. I want Nashville only because I have a nicer hotel reserved there vs Charlotte. As far as revenue to my state…ehhh. I hope to be living in NC within the next 2 years anyway. I am anxious to see how this all plays out. I have never been to a bowl game so I am hoping for a good time wherever it is. I too will be rooting for the Mountaineers vs FSU.
Joebill
If you’re worried about nice hotels, Charlotte recently opened up the new Ritz in uptown. I’m sure that’s not filled up.
=)
I’m looking on the plus side. Any bowl game gives UNC extra practices and helps build the program. What I’m more curious about is who the prospective opponents in each bowl would be. The Heels were a Sean Draughn fumble away from beating WVU last year. Going to bowl games is nice but winning them is even better. I want to see the team bounce back from a disappointing loss to State.