Troy deserved a Bowl Bid

[Turbine]

I will much more upset if Troy doesn't get a bowl bid.

jmo _

I'm upset.

Troy's only losses were to bowl bound teams, with 2 losses being the first 2 games out the gate. Which means Troy is 8-2 since the start of the season.

Just to add a little Insight into this travesty, a team Troy defeated Oklahoma State is in the Insight Bowl.

[NewsCopy]

The start of the long offseason officially got longer Sunday, when Troy University found out it won’t be going to any bowl game, despite finishing 8-4. Troy had a chance to go to the New Orleans Bowl, but lost to Florida Atlantic Saturday. Had Hawaii lost Saturday night, a spot likely in the Armed Forces Bowl would have been available. But Hawaii won, and the Bowl Championship Series chose Kansas over Arizona State for the Fiesta Bowl, meaning the Pac 10 would fill all of its spots. Every other tie-in was filled, and TCU of the Mountain West Conference took the eighth Big 12 spot in the Texas Bowl. It meant Troy would be at home while 20 teams with seven wins or less play in bowls, though all but TCU had a contractual tie-in. “I’m really sad for the guys that don’t get to go to a bowl,” Troy head coach Larry Blakeney said. “The only thing I can explain to them is that maybe we should have won the game.” Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters said Sunday he was hoping deals would happen and Troy could sneak into a bowl somewhere, but that didn’t happen. He figured attendance was a big factor in why TCU got selected over Troy for the Texas Bowl. “You look at the attendance yesterday (reported as 17,893),” Waters said. “A conference championship on a day with beautiful weather and there’s 17,000 people in the stands. With TCU being in the state of Texas and able to bring attendance, that was their selection.” Blakeney said he hopes the conference can get another bowl tie-in. Last year, Middle Tennessee got an at-large bid to the Motor City Bowl when the Big 10 couldn’t fill all its spots. Two years ago, UL-Lafayette was bowl eligible with a 6-5 record, but Arkansas State went to the New Orleans Bowl because of tiebreaker rules. Troy got an at-large bid to the Silicon Valley Classic in 2004. “We need another bowl tie-in,” Blakeney said. “I don’t think .500 teams should go to a bowl. If it’s Alabama, Auburn or Troy at 6-6, I don’t think they should be in a bowl.” Waters said the conference was still pursuing a second bowl tie-in, but it would be a costly financial operation. “With the conference playing out the way it has, we need to make sure if we have a 6-6 team, we have a second bowl so it is taken care of,” Waters said. “It’s an expensive proposition. With the New Orleans Bowl, it’s probably a half-million dollar loss (for the conference). With a second bowl, it would probably be a half-million dollar loss. “The biggest thing with our teams is that we need to win non-conference games, put people in the seats and do it with class.” The rest of the story

[rhineaux]

_ _

So much for all that crap by Wright Waters nearly guarunteeing that the conference would be assured two bowl contenders.

[CajunConnection]

I could not believe Troy did not get in some bowl. This is a slap in the face of all Sunbelt teams. No doubt the Belt is not a powerhouse overall , but if a team is deserving your reward them.
FAU needs to beat Memphis and next year all Belt teams need to play out of confernence games with a chip on their shoulder. Our Cajuns need to do their part.

CC

ps-

[Sonsissymia]

_ I'm upset.

Troy's only losses were to bowl bound teams, with 2 losses being the first 2 games out the gate. Which means Troy is 8-2 since the start of the season.

Just to add a little Insight into this travesty, a team Troy defeated Oklahoma State is in the Insight Bowl. _

the travesty in the eyes of the selectors, obviously, is the league. it's considered a joke in around the country. remember the journalist who wrote something like 'this was an sec team, not a sun belt team' to exemplify futility? somebody posted about it on here. i'm not ripping, just observing. the fact they were left out speaks for itself.

[rhineaux]

_ the travesty in the eyes of the selectors, obviously, is the league. it's considered a joke in around the country. remember the journalist who wrote something like 'this was an sec team, not a sun belt team' to exemplify futility? somebody posted about it on here. i'm not ripping, just observing. the fact they were left out speaks for itself. _

That just goes to show the incompetance of the media these days. they degrade the SBC for its performance, when the conference has a winning record against the CUSA in 2006, a conference with 4 tie-ins. And, just like last year, if the SBC wins the NO Bowl, then the SBC will again have a winning record against the CUSA.

Well, the worst point about the whole thing is that Wright waters all but assured that we'd have two teams, as was the case last year, and two years before that. The thing that I assume he didn't count on was that in 2005, there wasn't enough room for two teams, and that there could very well be a case where all the conferences would have teams worthy of filling their bowl obligations.

With the increased parity in college football, perhaps the bowl eligibility minimum needs to be changed from 6 wins to 7 wins so that we don't have any .500 teams.

[Turbine]

_ the travesty in the eyes of the selectors, obviously, is the league. it's considered a joke in around the country. remember the journalist who wrote something like 'this was an sec team, not a sun belt team' to exemplify futility? somebody posted about it on here. i'm not ripping, just observing. the fact they were left out speaks for itself. _

Yes, perception is pseudo-reality, even when it is wrong.

Troy played a BCS out of conference schedule, not counting their BIG-10 win they had an SEC schedule out of conference.

The SEC teams Troy played had 3 of the best 5 overall records by teams in the SEC.

The only luxury Troy didn't have that regular SEC teams have was the luxury of playing the bottom of the SEC ladder. No games against Vanderbilt, OleMiss, Alabama or South Carolina.

The out of conference patsies that SEC teams faced (plus their own bottom dwellers) are offset by the in conference patsies Troy faced.

I know there are the undeserved bowl tie-ins and all but take Mississippi State, they are going bowling and they didn't beat any of the teams Troy lost to, yet the pseudo-reality perception is they were better team.

Until they figure out a way to take the best teams, it is safe to say the regular bowl and BCS games are pretty much pseudo-events.

jmo

[CajunConnection]

On the Troy messageboards it is discussed how their attendance (17,000) for the game with FAU did them in. (It was a beautiful day, for all the marbles and not many gemes being played.)

If a bowl was looking their way, the attendance for that game swayed them.

It is all about the MONEY.

CC

[rhineaux]

_ On the Troy messageboards it is discussed how their attendance (17,000) for the game with FAU did them in. (It was a beautiful day, for all the marbles and not many gemes being played.)

If a bowl was looking their way, the attendance for that game swayed them.

It is all about the MONEY.

CC _

They could have gotten 34,000 (twice the actual attendance) and they wouldn't have gotten the bid over TCU. I heard an interview with the guy running the Texas Bowl, a few weeks ago on 610 AM (A very high quality sports radio station) here in Houston. This guy was counting on TAMU playing in the game, and wanted that matchup for the ticket perspective. He said he already had more than half of Reliant Stadium sold out, and figured he could easily sell the rest. TCU only got 26k for their last home game against UNLV. Its certainly more than Troy, but when you figure what percentage of that fan-base would travel to a bowl, and then factor in how much more might travel because they only have to drive 3+ hours to Houston, not to mention the alumni living in houston, compared to maybe a few Troy alumni living in Houston, and the others having either a considerable drive to the airport and a few hour plane trip or a 7+ hour drive...Its really a no-brainer, no matter what Troy would have had for their last game.

[Just1More]

Troy got screwed. All factors contributed to that fact... attendance, the perception of the SBC (partly correct, and mostly not... anymore) in football, the money, the a-holes in charge, etc.

The cool thing is that it wasn't UL (getting screwed out of a bowl). The sad thing is that it wasn't UL (8-4 record). I really feel bad for Troy and the SBC. It was an opportunity missed. Troy clearly deserved a bowl bid.

Oh, and the national sports media is a bunch of self-serving sluts. Watch and see if Notre Dame doesn't end up starting next year miraculously ranked in the top 25!

[slulionsfan]

That's why Sun Belt teams need to be playing I-AA. There's very little respect for the league around the country and nobody wants any of your schools in their bowl games. If Troy can't get a bid after going 8-4 with a big win over Okie State and reasonably close games with Florida and Georgia, your league is doomed. And I'm not trying to flame, just calling it like I see it.

[Hardcore]

The league is far from being doomed....it has taken great strides in the last couple of years and continues to improve! Stop the crap about going to your league because it ain't gonna happen!