"Bowl"-ing Matters
By Joe Giardina

It's hard to imagine that in a season where every game means so much, one game can mean so little. Yet this is exactly the situation that some college football fans perceive their teams to be in at the end of the regular season when a "minor" bowl game appears to be their destiny.

But this usually is not the case. Outside of the added revenue some of the larger bowl games can generate, the rewards of playing in a bowl game-any bowl game-can be immeasurable.

Although many coaches prefer not to admit it, teams set their goals high in the spring: conference titles, national titles, or at least a major bowl game. But not everyone can win their conference, and even though more bowls are being added, not everyone can make a postseason game. Many bowl-eligible teams with six wins or more sit at home in December.

Urban Meyer coached at smaller football schools such as Bowling Green and Utah before being hired as the head coach at Florida two years ago. He has seen the bowl selection process go both ways for his teams-some have underachieved and didn't even want to play in a bowl game; some others overachieved but were not able to go.

"I had to stand in front of a team twice, one was 8-3 and one was 9-3, and tell them, 'We're done, we're not playing anymore,'" Meyer said. "And I saw some 6-6 teams that didn't want to go."

Teams in non-BCS conferences such as the MAC or Mountain West are routinely overlooked for bowl games because of conference tie-ins. For example, this season the Independence Bowl has a tie-in with the eighth-place Big 12 and SEC teams.

"I wish they would go back to where they would get rid of the tie-ins," Meyer said. "And open those up for the young people that really would get something out of it. For a kid at Bowling Green to go to a bowl game - that's a great reward."

After tickets, hotel and flight accommodations, teams that go to the smaller bowls rarely make money. So why go?

The fact is that playing in a bowl game means more than just another game for most teams. While other teams are sitting at home due to NCAA rules regulating practices in the off-season, bowl teams are out preparing for their extra game. That often means an extra month of practice that can prove vital to a program's success.

"In college football the rich get richer," Rutgers' head coach Greg Schiano said, referring to the extra practice permitted to bowl teams. "It's not quite spring practice but its close. You have game preparation that you have to take care of, but we make sure to allot a very specific amount of time strictly for the development of the young players."

Last year Rutgers earned a bid to play Arizona State in the Insight.com Bowl, their first bowl bid since 1978. They lost 45-40, but the experience for the young players proved to be invaluable.

This season Rutgers was in the running for a Big East championship and BCS game all year, and at press time, the Scarlet Knights were nationally ranked with a 10-1 record. Currently the Knights have 88 underclassmen on their roster - only four behind West Virginia for the most in the Big East. This is a prime example of the success that developing young players can bring to a program.

Dave Wannstedt's Pitt Panthers were bowl eligible this season despite a disappointing 6-6 record. The Panthers are loaded with young players, many of whom will have an increased role in 2007. A few extra weeks of practicing for a bowl game, regardless of which one, would be a huge step toward next season.

Young players, however, aren't the only ones that benefit from extra practices. "I think it's beneficial not just for your young guys," said West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez, "but even for some of your upper classmen, so you have some things fundamentally that you don't have as much time during the season to work on."

The benefits don't end there.

When recruiting high school players, coaches preach about the future of their program. Players take notice, and coaches are keenly aware of this.

After defeating previously unbeaten Rutgers in November, Mark Dantonio, then head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats, had his team on the verge of garnering the program's fifth bowl bid in the last seven years. As the former defensive coordinator of the 2002 national champion Ohio State Buckeyes, Dantonio, now head coach at Michigan State, knows what the prospect of making a bowl game can do for recruiting.

"To be able to recruit with that idea that you're in a bowl game," Dantonio said, "is huge for every football team."

The difficulty of college football, as Schiano puts it, is that "you're chasing a moving target."

Good teams go to good bowl games. In return they get the better recruits, who themselves in turn have more chances to develop and gain experience during bowl season. This is a main reason why making a bowl game can be incredibly important to the success of a program.

Sixty-four teams will play in 32 different bowl games this season. They range from the high profit BCS bowl games-which pay out around $16 million per team-to the low tier bowl games such as the International Bowl, which pays $750,000 per team.

Sure, some teams set their goals so high before the season that the Las Vegas Bowl is seen as a disappointment for fans and players alike. But from the view atop the program, there are no meaningless bowl games in college football.