Doing some research, of the teams in the BCS conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 10, SEC), 49 teams had records of .500 or better, making them bowl eligible.
Of the other D-1A conferences (WAC, CUSA, MAC, MWAC, Sun Belt) 22 football programs were bowl eligible. Navy received a bid as an independent.
With 32 bowl games, somebody gets left out. Unfortunately, it happens to be a team like Troy.
"Just the facts." Sgt. Joe Friday
I'm not flaming either, but why does SLU even have football? They aren't respected around the country in D1AA. But, I haven't visited your fan forum to make that point. I think SLU is attempting to get back on track and get some respect... correct?
SBC football is building. And for some of the teams "around the country" that keep calling SBC teams rent-a-wins... they sure are going to take it extremely hard when they fall. You would have thought ULM beating Alabama was the end of Alabama football. There will be more to follow.
The Sun Belt has to be contracturally tied to a second bowl to assure themselves of an at-large bid.
It seemed to me like everybody wanted FAU to upset Troy to get two teams in bowls. With the SBC's current station in life, I'd rather have the best team win to make sure it goes bowling and can put the league's best foot forward.
If there is a contract in place then I don't think it is an "at large bid".
I, for one, wasn't pulling for an upset but since it occurred I hoped for the best, i.e. Troy' s selection to another bowl with the end result being two wins for the SBC.
Like in many previous cases, a worthy team didn't get a post season invite.
71 teams to fill 64 slots?
If I recall, last year it was 66 to fill 64 with 2 teams sitting out for fighting or something.
The fact that over half (15 over) of the BCS teams are over .500 tells me they get there on the backs of non BCS teams. This in turn tells me the only thing holding non BCS teams back is their willingness to play money games. This in turn will produce a poorer record and thus diminish fan interest and fan generated dollars.
jmo
NEW ORLEANS - As unlikely as it seems, Florida Atlantic carries the banner for the Sun Belt Conference tonight.
And Troy, the league's best football team all season except for a four-hour period, is sitting at home, still trying to figure out what happened.
The Trojans were on their way to the New Orleans Bowl, or surely some bowl game. They'd beaten their first six Sun Belt opponents by at least 17 points, and their only losses all year were respectable ones to three Southeastern Conference teams who are all playing in January bowls. The Trojans scored 93 points in those games against Arkansas (46-26), Florida (59-31) and Georgia (44-34).
All that came tumbling down on Dec. 1 when, on their home turf, Troy watched a 9-7 lead turn into a 35-12 deficit in a period of 13 minutes. That was too much of a hole for even the Trojans' potent offense, and Florida Atlantic stole away from the Alabama plains with a share of the league title and the Sun Belt's berth in tonight's Crescent City game.
The rest of the story
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com
Troy and Alabumble ought to be playing in the Birmingham Bowl except that Tide fans wouldn't want any possibility of going 0-2 record against the SBC this season.
But, I would have watched it.
As many of you know I currently live up in Columbus, Ohio. There is a MAC school call Bowling Green which was invited to the GMAC Bowl to face Tulsa in Mobile. There is one problem. Bowling Green can't fulfill it's 7,500 ticket sale allotment to meet requirements and will have to pay the GMAC Bowl for the unused tickets. They are actually asking Ohio State fans(who will already be down there for the National Title Game) to buy a ticket and go to the game which will be played the day before.
It's hard to believe that with all the Alabama based bowl games that Troy wasn't invited.
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