Jim Phillips, who serves as the ACC commissioner, had some interesting remarks in an article written by ESPN’s College Football Insider Heather Dinich. In the article, Dinich covered just about every storyline going into the 2024 college football season, from the transfer portal to the top teams. However, one part that really stuck out was a section that addressed non-playoff bowl games. While interviewing Jim Phillips, the following exchange occurred:
Jim Phillips has been outspoken about the bowl games outside of the New Year’s Six, and said the commissioners continue to talk about how to keep the bowl season healthy, while also wondering if more than 40 bowls is sustainable.
“Likely not,” Phillips said.
“I just feel that if we don’t pay close attention to that, that will do college football harm. There has always been an awful lot of good football teams at the end of the year that want a chance to continue to play, and this new playoff will whet the appetite of many, but it will only kind of quench the thirst of 12. …
…There’ll be other good teams that have been left out, so we have to try to learn about what we’ve seen through the CFP current model of four, where now we have the transfer portal, opt-outs at a higher rate than before. There’s always been medical reasons why student-athletes haven’t played as well. That’s a piece of this we have to use as part of the decision-making in what we do with the rest of the bowl system.”
Players Opting Out
According to College Football Sports Network, there were 830 college football players who opted out of their bowl games due to the transfer portal in the 40 non-playoff games. For those doing the math, that comes out to 21 players per game or 10.5 per team. This doesn’t include the 14 NFL Draft opt outs or the dozens of other players who were “injured”, but likely could have played if they wanted to.
Some bowl games had significantly more, while others had less. The Orange Bowl that featured Florida State and Georgia had 38 opt-outs, while the R&L Carriers Bowl between Louisiana and Jacksonville State only had two opt-outs. The Dukes May Bowl between North Carolina and West Virginia had 34 and the First Responders Bowl between Texas State and Rice only had five.
In general, the G5 teams had fewer opt-outs than the P5 teams, with few exceptions.
TV Ratings
Despite the number of players opting out and the general belief that the nonplayoff games were insignificant, the TV ratings still suggested that people were interested and tuning in. Of the 40 non-playoff games, 37 had at least one million viewers. The lowest-viewed game was South Alabama vs. Eastern Michigan in the Ventures Bowl, which resulted in a 59-10 blowout, yet it still pulled in 765,000 viewers.
25 of the 40 games pulled in at least two million viewers, and 16 passed three million.
Compared to 2022, there was a slight decrease in viewers, although the decrease in viewership can possibly be at least partially blamed on the increase in streaming and recordings. For example, if recording a game that is watched at a later time, those numbers don’t count. This is something I commonly do so that I can go back and fast-forward between TV breaks, injuries, and replay reviews. By doing this, three games can be watched in the time it would otherwise take to watch one.
Additionally, the multi-view option now offered by streaming services, including YouTube TV, makes it so that multiple games can be watched at the same time, but only the game with live audio is being accounted for, and even that has some questions as a new technology.
Still, the slight decrease in overall views does show perhaps interest is waning in traditional bowl games. If the trend of more players opting out continues, the decrease in views may also continue.
A Reason to Split
G5 teams tend to have fewer opt-outs in bowl games than P5 teams, particularly when it comes to P5 teams who had hopes of being a playoff team or came into the season with very high expectations (Utah, UNC, and USC as examples). Despite this, G5 teams went 2-6 in bowl games against P5 teams, with five of the six losses coming by two scores or more. This is a trend that has drastically changed in the past few years, where G5 teams have tended to dominate in their bowl record against P5 teams.
With the transfer portal essentially sucking out all of the great G5 talent every season, and with the best G5 teams moving up to the P5 (UCF, Cincinnati, BYU, Houston, and soon SMU), one has to wonder if the G5 will ever be competitive again.
With the 12-team playoff starting next year, interest in normal bowl games and the amount of opt-outs will only go down unless there are changes. Realistically, the playoff could look like the following next season.
- ACC: Top 2 teams
- Big 12: Top 2 teams
- Big 10: Top 3 teams
- SEC: Top 4 teams
- G5: Top team
For any team outside of this (other than G5), in order to be invested in a bowl game, there needs to be serious incentive. There are many ways to do this, but ultimately, Jim Phillips may be right about not having 40 bowl games.
What does need to be addressed regardless is that the G5 needs to be its own division. There simply isn’t enough representation, money, or opportunity for nearly half of the FBS teams. The G5 would do well to have their own 12-team playoff. While some fans argue it would dilute the interest in G5 football since it wouldn’t be the highest division, it may actually gain more popularity, particularly in the West, where there are only ten P5 teams west of Texas.
This year, the entire Mountain West and MAC conferences were out of the NY6 discussion (essentially the same teams that would be in a 12-team playoff) by week three. From a general college football fan, there was no reason to watch MAC football for the rest of the season. A 12-team G5 playoff would change that since there would be at least one representative from each conference.
Jim Phillips is Right…to an Extent
There are many different formats and ideas to address these issues, but the bottom line is that Jim Phillips is right that there needs to be change. Whether that means attaching NIL to bowl games, changing transfer portal rules (encouraging players to play), or having fewer bowl games, some kind of change is essential.
In my opinion, and where I differ from Jim Phillips, solutions that don’t require less football should be tried first before getting rid of any games. The past few years we’ve already gotten less football with changes to overtime, a running clock, and tougher onside kick rules. Taking away more games doesn’t seem like the answer, unless absolutely necessary.
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