SMQ: The FBS postseason and the history of bowl games

The third wave of bowl development and a growing Division I

By the 1960s, the success of even new additions to the bowl calendar beginning with the 1959 Liberty Bowl opened the door for a third wave of bowl expansion in the 1960s and 1970s. Until 1978, Division I football was still a mishmash of teams currently in the FBS and FCS. Once 1978 rolled around, the split between larger schools and smaller schools altered the significance of bowls once again.

Soon after the subdivision of Division I into two tiers, the NCAA took charge of redesigning the look of the postseason for the schools over which they still maintained control. The I-AA national championship bracket has evolved over the years to the point where 24 teams now compete annually for the title of nation’s best among the smaller schools in the top division.

What this left, however, was a vacuum that bowl games tried to continue to fill. Legal battles between college football’s historic powerhouses and the NCAA further eroded the influence the national organization had on the top level of gridiron action at the college level. This period saw the development of other major bowls, such as the Peach Bowl in 1968 and the Fiesta Bowl in 1971.

Both were created to provide automatic bids to newly developing leagues. The Fiesta Bowl, for instance, was created as a way to remedy WAC teams like Arizona and Arizona State being overlooked for bowl invitations. Now it sits as the youngest of the major New Year’s Six games that get a triennial opportunity to host a College Football Playoff semifinal.