New SBC Bowl Ties

[BirdofParadise]

_ Arkstate fan usually has good info. Here is his latest post on the MT board.

All-time stats are easier to find but not particularly enlightening. The Memphis athletic program that went 3-3-3 against I-AA Arkansas State in football has advanced a bit since then. The Memphis basketball program that lost three in a row in Memphis to ASU has advanced a bit.

Fan support in the Sun Belt isn't where it needs to be.

The Sun Belt is standing at a crossroads. A lot of things have lined up to give the conference a chance to advance but the schools have to seize those opportunities.

Likewise CUSA is at a key crossroads. Football had a pretty lousy year and despite having an RPI raiser like Memphis in their midst no one fielded a serious contender for an at-large berth. The schools have to figure out what they are going to do and find the right fits for their particular situations.

I don't expect to see the Sun Belt have anything other than some contingent bowl agreements for the next two years but there are some serious changes boiling. The price of poker is going up for the bowls and the NCAA is finally allowing bowls to cut different deals for the teams involved in a bowl game. It has always existed but on the sly (ie. MWC paid the Liberty hundreds of thousands as a contractor to market the league so they could get around paying them the same amounts). The Liberty purportedly has a similar deal that obligates the SEC a bit less than CUSA, but it's still a great deal for CUSA.

If you look down the list of bowl games, take a look at those paying less than the high $2 million range per team. The ones that are BCS v. BCS are all in danger of getting priced out of having two "name" teams. Folks like the GMAC are going to make a run at grabbing a team from the ACC, or SEC, or Big 12 piling up the chips to get one of those teams while holding or even dropping the cash paid to the opposing team.

There are going to be some interesting opportunities to emerge. PapaJohns.com, Emerald, Holiday, Independence, Music City, Sun, Insight, Champs, and Alamo all could be under attack. The GMAC is clearly going to make a run at grabbing a team. San Diego is certainly going to make a run at getting a Pac-10 team for the Poinsettia. Fort Worth will obviously make a play for a Big 12, Big 10 or SEC team. The New Orleans Bowl people will see if they can come up with enough sponsor money to grab a new team.

With a full year until negotiations get down and serious it's a crap shoot but I can see scenarios where an existing game wants to grab a Sun Belt team to have a low-cost opponent for that expensive name conference acquisition. I would not be even mildly surprised if a year or 18 months from now that the New Orleans Bowl finds itself competing against one or two other games from the Sun Belt champion.

I wouldn't be even mildly surprised to see ESPN Regional Television (ERT) create a flexible assignment system where they take for example the games in Birmingham, St. Pete, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, New Mexico and Hawaii and cut deals with multiple conferences on a flexible assignment system that would allow ERT to move teams in and out of bowls. For example they might go in saying that Fort Worth will be Big 12 vs. CUSA and Birmingham SEC vs. Sun Belt and then come assignment time elect to take UNT and send them to Fort Worth and take Memphis and send them to Birmingham to get the best match-ups.

There is a new day dawning and the next 24 months might just reshape how we view the bowls any deal cut right now is a stop-gap for the real changes. _

What they announced today is this"

The papajohn.com bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl. along with the Independence Bowl have contingency agreements with the Belt for the next two years.

This means if the bowls are unable to fill their contractual agreements with the SEC, Big XII, Big East or CUSA because they don't have enough bowl eligible teams, then taking a 7-5 SBC team becomes their first priority before looking anywhere else.

It seems that every year the big conferences have trouble filling all their slots, especially if they have two schools in BCS bowls.

While this does not guarantee a second bowl appearance as a bowl tie in would, it does make it more likely that what happened to Troy last year doesn't happen again.

The other good news is that the bowls are regional for our schools, making it easier for our fans, rather than trying to get Troy into the Silicon Valley Bowl or Middle into the Motor City Bowl

It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what we had.

[cajunhawk]

_ What they announced today is this"

The papajohn.com bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl. along with the Independence Bowl have contingency agreements with the Belt for the next two years.

This means if the bowls are unable to fill their contractual agreements with the SEC, Big XII, Big East or CUSA because they don't have enough bowl eligible teams, then taking a 7-5 SBC team becomes their first priority before looking anywhere else.

It seems that every year the big conferences have trouble filling all their slots, especially if they have two schools in BCS bowls.

While this does not guarantee a second bowl appearance as a bowl tie in would, it does make it more likely that what happened to Troy last year doesn't happen again.

The other good news is that the bowls are regional for our schools, making it easier for our fans, rather than trying to get Troy into the Silicon Valley Bowl or Middle into the Motor City Bowl

It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what we had. _

Let's just hope what happened to Troy last year success-wise happens for the Cajuns, I would kill to go 8-4.

[NewsCopy]

NEW ORLEANS - Sun Belt Conference commissioner stood behind a podium at a press conference early last week and announced the league's three new alternate bowl tie-ins beginning this season.

If the St. Petersburg Bowl (Big East/Conference USA), Papajohns.com Bowl (SEC/Big East) or PetroSun Independence Bowl (SEC/Big 12) cannot fill their games with bowl-eligible teams from their contracted conferences, the Sun Belt will get the first opportunity to fill those openings.

It was an announcement that Waters said showed that Sun Belt football - which already has an automatic tie-in with the New Orleans Bowl - is moving in the right direction. Waters sat down last week with The Daily Advertiser in his Sun Belt Conference office to discuss issues in the league.

Question: Why does it make sense for the Sun Belt, which started playing football in 2001, to get additional bowl tie-ins?

The rest of the story

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • July 27, 2008

[RaginDave]

I know that this is really premature to discuss this, but it looks as though the SBC is taking shape and the 4 top teams are 1 of the participants that will be looking to play on December 21st.

Troy and UL being in the drivers seat, with ASU and FIU having outside shots. This begs the question, with 8 bowl tie ins for CUSA, where could these team come from. Right now, 5 CUSA teams have better then .500 records, those being

Tulsa (on pace for a BCS game)
Marshall, ECU, Houston and Rice.

For the NO Bowl to be most successfull, it means that you would love to have a nice regional matchup with 2 of the teams from the area (USM, Tulane, Rice or Houston) It seems as though the USM or Tulane thing aint gonna happen.

But how about this for a nice matchup.

Louisiana vs Houston

Houston is 4-3 on the season, with a fairly tough schedule left including Marshall, Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP and Rice. Houston is averaging 22K+ for there home games, UL is averaging around 20K+ for there home games.

I think you could see roughly 40K in a game between the two and it would be a nice rematch of what was one of the most exciting games that UL has played in recent history. Rice would be another nice matchup, but would not bring the attendence that Houston would. ECU also travels well, not sure what type of matchup Marshall would be.

I know we have to take care of business and win our remaining games, but it is nice to start thinking of this possibility now.

Geaux UL!!!!!!

[Clutch0364]

_ I know that this is really premature to discuss this, but it looks as though the SBC is taking shape and the 4 top teams are 1 of the participants that will be looking to play on December 21st.

Troy and UL being in the drivers seat, with ASU and FIU having outside shots. This begs the question, with 8 bowl tie ins for CUSA, where could these team come from. Right now, 5 CUSA teams have better then .500 records, those being

Tulsa (on pace for a BCS game)
Marshall, ECU, Houston and Rice.

For the NO Bowl to be most successfull, it means that you would love to have a nice regional matchup with 2 of the teams from the area (USM, Tulane, Rice or Houston) It seems as though the USM or Tulane thing aint gonna happen.

But how about this for a nice matchup.

Louisiana vs Houston

Houston is 4-3 on the season, with a fairly tough schedule left including Marshall, Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP and Rice. Houston is averaging 22K+ for there home games, UL is averaging around 20K+ for there home games.

I think you could see roughly 40K in a game between the two and it would be a nice rematch of what was one of the most exciting games that UL has played in recent history. Rice would be another nice matchup, but would not bring the attendence that Houston would. ECU also travels well, not sure what type of matchup Marshall would be.

I know we have to take care of business and win our remaining games, but it is nice to start thinking of this possibility now.

Geaux UL!!!!!! _

If Tulsa wins out I still don't think they will be in a BCS game. To far down the list.

Rice would scare me in a game because of their ability to sling the football but I would love to watch that game.

Houston would be another fun game to watch.

Tulane if bowl eligible is who I want to play. They don't want to play us during the season well let them try to duck us in the post season.

[J-Town Cajun]

_ I know that this is really premature to discuss this, but it looks as though the SBC is taking shape and the 4 top teams are 1 of the participants that will be looking to play on December 21st.

Troy and UL being in the drivers seat, with ASU and FIU having outside shots. This begs the question, with 8 bowl tie ins for CUSA, where could these team come from. Right now, 5 CUSA teams have better then .500 records, those being

Tulsa (on pace for a BCS game)
Marshall, ECU, Houston and Rice.

For the NO Bowl to be most successfull, it means that you would love to have a nice regional matchup with 2 of the teams from the area (USM, Tulane, Rice or Houston) It seems as though the USM or Tulane thing aint gonna happen.

But how about this for a nice matchup.

Louisiana vs Houston

Houston is 4-3 on the season, with a fairly tough schedule left including Marshall, Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP and Rice. Houston is averaging 22K+ for there home games, UL is averaging around 20K+ for there home games.

I think you could see roughly 40K in a game between the two and it would be a nice rematch of what was one of the most exciting games that UL has played in recent history. Rice would be another nice matchup, but would not bring the attendence that Houston would. ECU also travels well, not sure what type of matchup Marshall would be.

I know we have to take care of business and win our remaining games, but it is nice to start thinking of this possibility now.

Geaux UL!!!!!! _

There are 6 bowl game tie ins with CUSA not 8. You are right that there are only 5 teams with winning records as of right now which leaves 1 spot open to a SBC member (possibly UL). If Tulsa does make a BCS game that will leave a extra spot open.

My guess is if we go 7-5 we should get in. 6-6 maybe most likely not. The game against UTEP may be for a postseason berth for both teams. UTEP is currently 3-4 with games against Rice, @ UL, SMU, @ Houston, and @ ECU left. They will need to win 3 out of 5 with 3 out of 5 on the road to become eligible. If they become eligibe they may take a possibel bowl berth away from UL and vice versa. SMU is almost a sure win and the others are toss ups. Who would have thought the UTEP game at the beginining of the year would be this important between the 2 teams.

Now to back my point about 7-5 getting us into a bowl game. If we go 7-5 with a loss to UTEP that means we go 6-1 in conference and that means a championship or at worst 2nd place finish. I believe a 2nd sunbelt team will find a bowl game this year somewhere. If we go 7-5 with a win against UTEP that means most likely UTEP will be eliminated and this open up a bowl spot.

[J-Town Cajun]

Outside of the New Orleans bowl there are other SBC tie-ins if they cannot fulfill with the current conferences they must go to the SBC first.

1. St. Peterburg bowl on Dec. 20th matching Big East and CUSA
2. Pappa Johns bowl on Dec. 29th matching Big East vs. SEC
3. Independence bowl on Dec. 28th matching the SEC vs. Big XII

We need to pull for teams from the above conferences to get an at large BCS game or to not fulfill their bowl tie-ins.

Here is the breakdown
1. CUSA has 6 tie-ins this is nuts for a conference this weak
2. Big XII has 7 + 2. The plus 2 is optional between Big XII, Big East, and ND
3. SEC has 9 tie-ins.
4. Big East has 5 + 2. The plus 2 is again opitional see above.

Right now it looks like the Big XII may get all 9 teams in. The SEC may get all 9 but right now they only have 8 teams with winning records. The Big East looks to get 6 teams in.

Right now out best shot is St. Petersburg bowl.

Geaux Cajuns keep winning.

[RaginDave]

Bowl tie-ins with the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, GMAC Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, St. Petersburg Bowl, R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl and Texas Bowl

This was pulled directly from the CUSA website. This shows 7 bowl tie ins not 6.

Maybe I am wrong, but according to the CUSA website.

[BirdofParadise]

_ There are 6 bowl game tie ins with CUSA not 8. You are right that there are only 5 teams with winning records as of right now which leaves 1 spot open to a SBC member (possibly UL). If Tulsa does make a BCS game that will leave a extra spot open.

My guess is if we go 7-5 we should get in. 6-6 maybe most likely not. The game against UTEP may be for a postseason berth for both teams. UTEP is currently 3-4 with games against Rice, @ UL, SMU, @ Houston, and @ ECU left. They will need to win 3 out of 5 with 3 out of 5 on the road to become eligible. If they become eligibe they may take a possibel bowl berth away from UL and vice versa. SMU is almost a sure win and the others are toss ups. Who would have thought the UTEP game at the beginining of the year would be this important between the 2 teams.

Now to back my point about 7-5 getting us into a bowl game. If we go 7-5 with a loss to UTEP that means we go 6-1 in conference and that means a championship or at worst 2nd place finish. I believe a 2nd sunbelt team will find a bowl game this year somewhere. If we go 7-5 with a win against UTEP that means most likely UTEP will be eliminated and this open up a bowl spot. _

It doesn't work that way.

If the St. Pete, papajohns and/or Independence Bowls can't fill their slots with their contracted leagues, they MUST take a 6-6 Sun Belt team before anyone else.

A difference between 7-5 and 6-6 wouldn't matter unless we were competing against other SUN BELT schools for that slot.

As long as the opening(s) exist, it (they) belong to the Sun Belt.

Now you may be correct about UTEP needing that win to secure a CUSA slot.

[J-Town Cajun]

_ It doesn't work that way.

If the St. Pete, papajohns and/or Independence Bowls can't fill their slots with their contracted leagues, they MUST take a 6-6 Sun Belt team before anyone else.

A difference between 7-5 and 6-6 wouldn't matter unless we were competing against other SUN BELT schools for that slot.

As long as the opening(s) exist, it (they) belong to the Sun Belt.

Now you may be correct about UTEP needing that win to secure a CUSA slot. _

BOP I understand that it makes no difference between 7-5 and 6-6 if the spot is opening. The reason I said 7-5 would give us a better chance is that at 7-5 we most likely end up no worse than 2nd in conference and maybe it would be enough to win it. Also if we are 7-5 that may mean that we beat UTEP and that may knock them out of bowl contention. We could very well get a bowl game or another SBC team get an at-large at 6-6, but it is just not as likely as a 7-5 record. Either way I just want a bowl game and win.