Bowl Season Faces Uncertainty Amidst College Football changes

College footballS 41-game bowl schedule kicked off Dec. 13 with washington beating Mountain west champion Boise State 38-10 at the LA Bowl. The game featured two widely known programs at SoFi Stadium, and Nielsen ratings data showed 4.1 million viewers tuned in.

But the six-day turnaround from selection to kickoff led to an announced crowd of 23,269. The LA Bowl is likely to expire after four games, as first reported by On3’s brett McMurphy. And the swirl of coaching news, player movement, teams declining bowl invitations and potential College Football Playoff expansion discussions dwarfed any discussion about the game’s outcome or any non-CFP result.

The bowls are in a precarious position in today’s college football. The CFP operates through them in the quarterfinals and semifinals, but the popularity of first-round on-campus matchups and potential CFP expansion to 16 teams, combined with player and team opt-outs, could lead to a further devaluation.but Bowl Season executive director nick Carparelli sees coexistence between the bowls and a growing tournament through a transition era.

“We certainly have our issues that need to be resolved, but there’s probably not one issue that college athletics faces in general that doesn’t need to be reevaluated,” Carparelli said.”At this point in time, we’re going through a major transition in the sport, and we’re excited to talk to our conference partners once bowl season’s over to work with them to decide, what does bowl season need to look like in the future?”

Carparelli spoke with The athletic on a number of bowl-related topics as the postseason takes root throughout holiday week.The first relates to how the bowls can survive alongside CFP expansion.

When the four-team College Football Playoff began in 2014, the sport’s hierarchy determined that 12 teams would comprise the upper-level New Year’s Six bowls. Then, when the CFP included all 12 teams, those six bowl games operated in the quarterfinals or semifinals, which changed little in the outside bowl system. However, more expansion takes away four teams from the upper tier of non-CFP bowls.how much will that detract from bowl games?

I think it’s certain that it goes to 16 – and I think it shoudl be – but let’s get to a number that makes sense and stick with that for a period of time and really evaluate how that works for college football. I think anything beyond 16 seems a little far-fetched to most people.Sixteen is going to require every team who wants to win a championship to win four games. Even the NFL doesn’t play more than four postseason games. So, I think 16 is where we probably will end up, and the bowl system will adjust just fine.

There are still more than 16 teams in any given season that have earned the right to play in the postseason and to celebrate a successful season. Because let’s not forget, the definition of success is very diffrent, depending on the football program.

After it was snubbed for a CFP spot, Notre Dame chose not to compete in a bowl game. Kansas State and iowa State opted out after losing their head coaches and cited players’ injuries as a major concern. The bowl system already needed two