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Once upon a time, in a not-too-distant past, college football bowl season was perhaps the best part of December. For three weeks straight, fans could watch college football games at seemingly any time of day in weird locations with all sorts of chicanery.
Now, especially with the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff and star players opting out in order to either transfer or enter the NFL Draft, bowl season is a shell of its former self.
And, as it turns out, ESPN College GameDay host and broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit wanted to accelerate the process of killing it off entirely.
Kirk Herbstreit Says He Advised ESPN To Cut Down On Bowl Games
Anybody who watched the Hawaii Bowl, in which the Rainbow Warriors scored a last-second touchdown with a backup quarterback to complete a comeback from 21-0 down and beat Cal, knows that bowl games are wonderful.
Herbstreit, however, doesn’t see it the same way.
On a recent episode of his Nonstop with Kirk and Joey podcast, Herbstreit told his co-host, Joey Galloway, that he had advised ESPN to cut down on bowl games at a recent seminar. He argued that 6-6 teams playing in bowls diminishes what should be a reward for successful seasons.
“I feel like I said this at a seminar one time,” Herbstreit said. “The back of the room — when you and I sit back there — I’ll raise my hand, pull the button down, pull the mic down, and say, ‘Are we creating too many bowl games? Bowl games are supposed to be special. They’re supposed to be a reward for a great year. Do we have to have all these 6-6 teams and like creating these bowl games just because they rate well? I feel like we’re oversaturating the bowl season.’ And that didn’t go over real well when I brought that up at the ESPN seminar.
Does Herbstreit have a point about bad teams making bowls? Sure. But is sending a team to Idaho in December really a reward for that team?
And plus, bowls are as much for fans as they are players.
Ironically, Herbstreit said that Penn State interim coach Terry Smith’s postgame interview after beating Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl was one of the best things he’s seen this season. Meanwhile, Smith only got that opportunity because the Nittany Lions won their last three games of the season to finish 6-6.
So which is it, Kirk?