Four New Bowls Could Mean Total of 43 Bowl Games in 2015

By Kevin Kelley -

Last season, the addition of five new bowl games brought the total number to 39, including the College Football Championship Game.

Bowls added in 2014 included the Boca Raton Bowl, Miami Beach Bowl, Popeye’s Bahamas Bowl, and Raycom Media Camellia Bowl. The Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit was also added to replace the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl at the same venue.

According to an ESPN report on Wednesday, four more bowls have applied to the NCAA for approval this season.

If approved as expected, there would be a record 43 bowl games, including the College Football Playoff title game, requiring 84 teams to fill each bowl. That would mean 66 percent of the 127 FBS teams would go bowling.

One of the new bowls, the AutoNation Cure Bowl, is already set for Dec. 19 on CBS Sports Network. The game will pit teams from the American and Sun Belt at Citrus Bowl Stadium in Orlando, Florida.

The three other cities that have applied do not currently host a bowl game. Each city is listed below along with the likely conference matchup according to ESPN.

Austin, Texas
Matchup: American vs. C-USA
Location: TBD (likely Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium)

Tucson, Arizona
Matchup: C-USA vs. MWC
Location: Arizona Stadium

Little Rock, Arkansas
Matchup: American vs. Sun Belt
Location: War Memorial Stadium

What do you think of the possible new additions? One might say there would be too many bowls, but there doesn’t seem to ever be enough college football.

2015-16 Bowl Schedule

Comments (37)

Great for the smaller schools but have they not gone to far with ALL of the bowl games? The stands ar 3/4 empty in most of the newer bowls.

My God. We are going to need waivers for 5-7 teams if these get approved. Every team should just have a designated bowl game…

People complain about to many bowls but I enjoy them. Rankings have gone up on bowl games watched but the small bowls (& most bowls) are never sell outs & never will be, nothing wrong with 6-6 teams going to a bowl of course most would disagree.

It seems like the American is adding bowl games just to have them, even though it is only benefitting the Sun Belt and Conference USA. There should be a bowl game between the Mountain West and American. Have the best play the best in years, in years they are not included in the New Year’s 6. I’d rather see the best MW team play the best American team, then a 6-6 Pac12 team in Vegas.

Hey, now there is hope for Ga. State, Idaho, Indiana, E. Michigan, Kent St., U Mass., Army…

I thought this was an April Fools’ joke at first, but then realized no joke was intended. No surprise with the media demand and hype to continue to water down and dilute the product we’ve grown accustomed to. Whether people or fans attend these games or not is of little concern, the only concern is whether the Networks can sell the advertising minutes. Someday in the near future, I believe, the Advertisers will come to a realization that they are not getting their dollars’ worth when buying these minutes and some of these games and events will come crashing down. Personally I’m not a fan of adding to the post season “bowl” games and would prefer pre-season neutral site match-ups that would in turn help define the rankings during the season.

It’s a chance for some talented kids to get a vacation and some swag for the holidays. I say let them have their bowl. Not to mention this increases the likelihood of UTSA getting into one. The Austin Bowl would be a great location to play.

bowl games should be for teams with 7-5 record and if you have not enough teams then go with the 6-6 record teams

I never got why people have to complain about there being too many bowl games. Nobody is forcing you to watch.

Beat it MDawg, this site is for people who care and have an opinion, the reason we are on it. So spare us….. I am all up for evenly matched teams playing against each other especially in college football due simply to the parity that exists in collegiate athletics. But the bowls suck and the games aren’t between the most evenly matched and deserving teams. The are a joke in my opinion which I have explained many times on here. Until basically #5 plays #6 and so forth the rankings will not be as accurate as they should be. But they set the rankings then strategically arrange the bowls to get the outcomes that are most favorable to their wants. A joke if you ask me. I care more about how disappointing the match-ups of the bowls are than the OOC regular season games.

At this rate they will change the rule to 5 wins to get more teams in bowls. And before you know it, there will be about 60 bowls.

Great. In fact I wouldn’t mind if every team went to a bowl. If ESPN wants to show UNLV vs Eastern Mich at 9 o clock on a Tuesday morning, I will tune in to watch. I like football,

I enjoy watching the smaller bowls. They have some good games each year. But even I agree that 43 is too many. Granted, some of these if not all will likely get rejected but we shouldn’t have to put 5-7 teams in bowls just because they exist.

I was under the impression or at least use to be under the impression that bowl games were for teams with a winning record. When we played 11 games a year you had to be at least 6-5, which was perfect. Now that we play 12 games, I personally think that a team should have to go 7-5 to qualify for a bowl. I also think that maybe instead of adding bowls they should allow teams that don’t qualify for a bowl to have an extra two or three weeks of practice so the lower teams can continue to improve as well. If you are good (successful) you get to continue improving with extra practice time but if you aren’t good you don’t get the extra needed time and the gap continues to widen. Pretty lame if you ask me. I personally want to see at most about 30 bowls and even that is pushing it. I will watch the other bowls because I love college football and like to follow specific teams and players but also because there isn’t a damn thing on TV other than sports worth watching, other than a few great TV shows like, “Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones”. However, Go Tigers Baby, We Too Deep.

On the other hand, this most likely isn’t achievable due to the FCS playoff system, but how cool would it be to see the top few FCS programs play against a 6-6 or 7-5 FBS team in a bowl. That would be something I would not only watch but would attend if it was within driving distance. I live three hours from SF and never have I once wanted to go to the bowl played there. It’s not appealing one bit. But if it were against say BYU and App St., you can mark my words id be there. Just a thought, I know it will never happen but do think it would be cool….

if Austin did host a bowl game – premuably being played at UT’s DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium – and UTSA got a chance to play in it, I can see it having great attendance by UTSA fans due to the close proximity it has to San Antonio

Yeah, I’m not sure why they have TBD by the Austin one. With the Erwin Center’s days numbered (they were able to host Arena Football there for a while, but I don’t think that allows enough space for sidelines anyway, does it?), I’m not sure where else they’d put it. I don’t think that the Circuit of the America’s has a “football configuration”, I don’t think that the Cedar Park Center does either…? And aside from location and view, House Park wouldn’t be much of a bowl game venue… unless of course you wanted it to look more full, because it is smaller… generally hosts regional HS match-ups and the local MLS development league team.

It’s an interesting situation because, actually, for how some bowl games end up being attended, House Park’s 6,500 seats might make more sense some years than DKR’s 100,119 (which is likely going to be expanded again in the not-too-distant future). Pretty sure it would have to be DKR though.

But yeah, the proximity of some of the C-USA and AAC teams (Houston, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa, LA Tech, UNT, Rice, UTEP, and UTSA) along with Austin’s reputation as a fun place to visit may help get some fans in the seats. I’d imagine that something like Houston vs UTSA would be the ideal match-up they’d like, but I’d also imagine that the game wouldn’t necessarily be high up in the pecking order early on, particularly for the AAC so it might be a bit of a crap shoot to see who’d be available.

I see nothing wrong with these young kids from these Smaller Conferences who have worked just as hard as the Fab 5 Conferences to have a nice vacation, and enjoy being invited to a bowl game? I also agree that the promoters should do a much better job in selling the tickets, and getting people to come to these games?

Oh and if Little Rock is going to host a bowl game, then either CUSA or The American should invite Arkansas State to join their Conference? Arkansas State could replace UAB? ..and The American should add UMass and Army?

It used to be that CUSA was a step up from the belt. That really isn’t true anymore.

Will there be enough teams with a minimum 6 wins to fill the new bowls. That’s the question.

If not some 5-7 teams will be given waivers

A joke. There already are too many bowl games with too many undeserving teams. Eliminate most of the confernece tie-ins (because the smaller conferences will suffer if you eliminate it completely) and make it so a team has to be 7-5 with at least 6 wins vs FBS opponents.

Or they could have the games, and you can go the movies that day if you want.

Here is my feelings and thoughts about it all.

Feelings: I enjoy watching competitions. The bowl games are usually awesome matches between 2 teams of different conferences. The more bowls, the better for college football, but if you going to add more bowl games, please add some match-ups between conferences that haven’t been matched-up during the post-season, like Pac-12 .vs. SEC. These rematches between conferences are becoming very dull, when they don’t include teams that the fans like. HONESTLY, the post-season would be more interesting (and rewarding) if each conference can have only eligible team, matching up against one of another conference. There is no need (or sense) in having 3 SEC teams .vs. 3 Big 12 teams during a post-season, when that usually happens during the regular season; plus one of those teams can play a Pac-12 team, since that USUALLY doesn’t happen in the ANY part of the season. THEREFORE, I’m all good for adding bowls, but only if it’s adding NEW match-ups.

Thoughts: This is crazy when more than 50% of teams in ANY sport is awarded a post-season game. If you going to award more than 50%, than award EVERY team for just participating in the sport. At this point, it’s not about the BEST teams in the league getting a rewarded. It’s about how much MONEY is getting made off of these teams. BOWL games in FBS is like NIT in Div-1 basketball. The differences is that the NIT + March Madness = near the top 25% best teams of the Div-1; and the CFP + all BOWL games = over the top 50% best teams of the FBS. 50% of Div-1 NCCAB teams have to win their conference tournament, just to have a post-season; while 50% of FBS teams just have to win 50% of their games to be eligible for a post-season. Getting into a post-season in the FBS has gotten too easy now. All of the bowl games need to get together and create some brackets (NIT-style). You can explain the CFP with 4 of the current bowls, and some of the other bowls can create an NIT bracket as well. This would lessing the amount of eligible teams, but you get to keep your bowls.

Mainly, I see pros and cons for these bowl games and the FBS. Roll Tide! Go SEC!

For my comment, I did notice that the NBA has allow more than 50% of their teams into the playoffs; and I think it looks strange as well, especially with losing record teams are in the playoffs over winning record teams, due to being in different conferences. (The FBS does that as well, when you look at the eligible teams from the Group of 5 conferences that didn’t play in the previous post-season).

I think it’s important that every eligible team with 7 wins or more get into a bowl game. In this regard, the NCAA should bring back the rule making at-large slots consider such teams before 6-6 teams, even if it means putting a small-time team in over a big-time team. The small-time teams need the money and exposure more, the big-time teams have plenty of that. We’ve had several teams over the past 5 years screwed by a system that favors the power conferences.

I definitely agree with you in taking some of the smaller teams over the P5s as well as you should have to win a minimum of 7 games now that we play 12 games, and a few play 13.

The only benefit the small bowl games give to the smaller schools is the extra practice time. You go bowling, I believe it is an extra 3 weeks of practice, which benefits the underclassmen. However, these lower level bowls also cost these schools lots of money, so I think it should be the coach and players decision if the cost is worth the reward. I enjoy watching more football when it’s below zero outside, but I do agree a lot of these bowls are just plain ridiculous.