Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Congressional Bowl Licensed

Air Force coach Troy Calhoun wants the academy to pursue direct tie-ins with bowl games similar to what Navy had with the Poinsettia Bowl last year.

You become bowl eligible (by winning six or more games), you get an automatic invite to the bowl with which you have a direct tie-in.

There appears to be a perfect scenario for such a partnership in the Congressional Bowl, which was sanctioned by the NCAA on Wednesday along with the St. Petersburg Bowl. Those two bowl games will join the 32 existing bowl games that were played last season and were licensed again by the NCAA Postseason Football Licensing Subcommittee on Wednesday. The proposed Rocky Mountain Bowl in Salt Lake City was not licensed.

The 2008 Congressional Bowl will feature Navy (if it reaches six victories and thus becomes “bowl eligible”) against a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference. The bowl has a deal in place with Army for the 2009 game and would like to arrange a future tie-in with Air Force.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jake--where will the bowl be played--DC?

jake.schaller said...

Sorry, yes. The game will be played in DC at either RFK (the Washington Redskins' old stadium and site of 2/3 of my fond childhood memories -- my dad and I went to all the home games from about 1982 to 1991) or the new Nationals Park -- the baseball stadium just opened for the Washington Nationals.

Anonymous said...

jake-

i was wondering if you could provide a bit of insight.

my understanding is that the bowl game would feature the ACC #9 team. is that correct? if that is in fact the case, has a #9 ACC team even been bowl eligbile? (and of course thie would be

thanks for your work.

jake.schaller said...

Yes, the opponent will come from the ACC, and the ACC already has tie-ins with eight bowls so, technically, it's the #9 team (though sometimes there is some juggling among the last couple bowls choosing from one conference to provide the best matchups, i.e. the bowl that chooses seventh might take the eighth-place team because it makes more sense for that bowl).

Now, there is a chance the No. 9 team would not be eligible. And, like happened with the Big 12 last year, maybe the BCS pulls in an extra ACC team and suddenly there isn't an ACC left for the Congressional Bowl. The bowl currently is trying to figure out what conference would be the back-up.

I know that the immediate thought is "What a crummy reward -- going to a bowl and playing a ninth-place team." But keep in mind that the MWC champ goes to the LV Bowl and place a middle-of-the-road Pac-10 team. So while you might not get a great opponent in this bowl, at lease you're going to a bowl (and, likely, facing a BCS opponent).