Going Bowling - 2nd Bowl

MeanGreen61 · July 27, 2006

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Going Bowling

At Tuesday's Sun Belt Conference media day, commissioner Wright Waters said he was excited about the future of the league and hopes to see it grow. One part of that, Waters said, would be the addition of a second bowl tie-in for the league.

Currently, the Sun Belt Conference is only guaranteed one bowl bid a year, sending its champion to the New Orleans Bowl. In addition, only once in the five-year history of the league has a Sun Belt team received an at-large bowl bid. In 2004, Troy went 7-5 and earned a bid to the Silicon Valley Bowl.

Before the league can involve itself in serious talks with a bowl, though, it needs to be able to guarantee that bowl will have a team every year.

"We've got to have assurance that we will have a second team that is bowl eligible every year," Waters said. "Then we will know that it is time to get a second team on board."

To be bowl eligible, a team must win six games if it plays a 12-game schedule and seven games if it plays a 13-game schedule. In five years, the Sun Belt has had two bowl eligible teams three times. It's never had three bowl eligible teams in the same season.

North Texas is the only team in league history to have reached the magic number of six wins multiple years since joining the league. Three teams -- ULM, Florida Atlantic, and Florida International -- have never been bowl eligible.

Part of the problem has been scheduling. After playing three or four "money games" on the road against big conference opponents, it's difficult for teams to get enough wins in league play to reach bowl eligibility.

This year, for example, only three teams -- ULL, North Texas, and Middle Tennessee State -- have more than one nonconference game in their home stadium.

"We've got to get to the point where we scheduling to get as many bowl eligible teams as we can," Waters said.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/news/blogs/blog...ng-bowling.html