SMQ: The FBS postseason and the history of bowl games
By Zach Bigalke
The lasting significance of bowl games on the college football landscape
What can we learn from over a century of bowl games? Quite simply, they were a quirk of development that quickly evolved into the status quo. In the 1990s, the increased importance of conference affiliation and the diminished impact of the NCAA opened the door for a new system. But the powerhouses congregating to create a regular national championship game couldn’t detach their desires for a definitive postseason from the concept of bowl games.
That is how college football went from the Coalition and Alliance days into the BCS era, slowly picking up steam and converting intransigent conferences into the fold of true believers. All the while, smaller schools continued to be left on the outside. The WAC rose and fell as a result of falling out of favor with more established leagues. Eventually existence proved too much to ask for as the league collapsed as a football entity.
In a sport where myth-making is a critical part of its popularity, college football will continue to seek to create a postseason system that increases access while maintaining as much significance in bowl games as possible.
What will be the future of bowl games in college football?
Ultimately, these games remain sources of pride for communities. They remain fun rewards that mitigate the under-compensated economic realities of college football as a business and student-athletes as the labor pool. As the College Football Playoff eventually expands to eight teams, the ancillary bowls will continue to live out their days as the exhibition sideshows they were always designed to be.
Next: Predicting all 41 bowl games and CFB Playoff
In a time when so much importance is placed on crowning a single champion for the entire country, bowl games offer a different model that at once runs counter to the College Football Playoff system and yet works concurrently alongside it.. Not everyone will get to play for a national title, but dozens of schools can still end their year on a high note thanks to the quirky evolution of a unique postseason around the top level of college football.