According to this article out of JAX, the folks in the sometimes sunny part of Florida aren’t a bunch of happy campers. With the adjustments in the ACC bowl pecking order, The Gator Bowl went from the first, non BCS pick to second. After watching many years of college football with conference championship games, it is not uncommon to see power sways among the divisions. Often accompanying these sways is a much more attractive division runner up than the team who loses in the conference culmination, for the first selecting, non-BCS bowl. This was often the case in the SEC of the late ‘90’s with UT/UF power struggle atop the East and a several loss team coming out of the West. More recently this has been observed in the Big 12, with the South Division dominating. This year, we see it a bit closer to home in the ACC. The Atlantic Division featured four teams with 8 or more wins, while the Coastal only had two, with the non-division winner having a much larger fan draw association. To go along with the conundrum, the conference made the bright move of placing their conference championship game in the same town as one of the most likely bowl destinations of it’s losing team.

You see where I am going with the Wake Forest victory and Ga. Tech’s lack of traveling fan base. Now the bowl folks are ticked, and rightfully so. Meanwhile the Tigers get Swafford-ed (copyright pending) again.

With Va. Tech off the board to Atlanta and the bowl formerly known as the Peach, the Gator was left to pick from MD, BC, Clemson, and the Yellow Jackets. Ga Tech didn’t travel to the ACCCG, why would most make a return trip for the Gator, much less additional fans join in (other than available holiday travel time)? So the bowl hypothetically would be left to pick from BC, MD, or the Tigers. Then the caveat. Tech only had one conference loss. The Tiger’s had 3. In kicks the one loss difference clause, preventing a bowl from lifting a lower conference team to it’s bowl if there is more than game’s difference in their conference records.

As you may or may not have read, the Gator Bowl folks are seeing red. Fortunately for them, they have the WVU Mountaineers coming to town (this gnomes personal pick to have been the 12^th ACC team instead of BC). Their stadium will have plenty of Blue and Gold at least, meanwhile the best traveling team in the conference is sent to not so sunny Nashville to pick banjo’s with a UK team that is nothing more than a big let down game in an already disappointing season.

To sum it up, thanks for being the asses you are John Swafford and company. You made agreements with the bowls so you and they could both make money. Because you and your little buddies in the triangle couldn’t muster a berth, don’t go strong arming the bowls behind closed door that you made agreements while publicly promoting their ability to choose for themselves. Let them have their picks and collect your check otherwise those checks won’t be nearly as nice next time negotiations come around (in a year or so if not already).

Posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 1:02 pm by Bowman

Filed under Football, Georgia Tech.

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