Bowl Game Scenarios: Does the committee respect the Gophers Football Program?

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RonJohnsonII

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As a former player I remember finishing the 1999 season 8-3 after beating #2 in the country Penn State at Penn State. I assumed as a young 19 year old that beating a top team like that and losing to some tough teams we would have a chance to be invited to a great bowl game like the Outback Steakhouse Bowl, The Cotton Bowl, etc. granted I knew we weren't close to being invited to some of the BCS bowls you now know today(pre-BCS era). So when we got the call that we were invited to the Sun Bowl we were excited because the previous year we didn't make it to a Bowl Game, but we were less than happy that Penn State still got invited to a better bowl than us after we beat them. We wondered was it our fan support and how they travel? Was it our team and that we really only had Tyrone Carter as a big name? We were clueless. To this day I still wonder the true answer Minnesota doesn't get the respect of some of these teams we constantly beat yet they get invited to better bowl games than us. What are your thoughts and has the committee began to see us in a better light?
 

We definitely got jumped that year in the pecking order and I think there was another year that we were "in line" for the Alamo Bowl and got passed over as well.

It's kind of a chicken and egg type of thing - prove you can travel, but give us a Fla bowl game and we will (hopefully) travel. Obviously the bowl games care about two things: number of people who travel and TV ratings.

Jerry Kill is our brand now and he has a national profile due to his personality, health issues he's overcome and the respect that people have for him (other coaches, administrators, etc.). I'm not sure if that will push us over the hump if we're even in the eyes of a bowl selection or not. Though I think the new bowl selection process does protect us a bit more than in the past.

Go Gophers!!
 

If we're in line for Florida and get jumped again this year, I'm just giving up on the bowl system. If the best teams don't go to the best bowls, then there isn't really a point to them. If we beat Nebraska and get jumped by them, then it's just time to give up.
 

Last year we got passed up for a Michigan team who finished with a worse overall record, and below us in the conference standings (but admittedly beat us head to head). The reason I heard was the head to head victory, and we had "our chance" to show we were more deserving than Michigan, but I struggle to believe that, had the situations been reversed, that a 3-5 Gopher team would have been picked over 4-4 Wolverine team even if the Gophers had won.
 

The committee must have some respect for the Gophers considering they kept us ranked #25 on their list, even after we lost to tOSU. In the past I would say that no we did not have respect. We have always gotten passed up for teams with a better perception. The problem with rankings and polls is that they are always skewed towards who was either good the previous year and who is considered a helmet school. Recently if you play in the SEC you get respect because of the perception that they are the best. In a better world their would be no pre-season rankings. In-fact I wouldn't release rankings until after the 1st week of conference play if not later than that. Perception is why we didn't get respect.
 


The CFP committee has nothing to do with bowl selection outside of the playoff and a select few other bowl games (Peach, Cotton, etc.). What does matter in the new selection process are 1) the conference and 2) the bowl. The conference is on the side of variety for the fans (or at least, they've stated they are), while the bowl will be on the side of $$ as usual. Whether 1) can outweigh 2) in the new system is yet to be seen.
 

I honestly don't think we're being singled out - it has to do with national exposure.

Why does everyone know and expect Texas to make a major bowl and the likes of Kansas State get passed over? I think it takes awhile for the general public to get used to success (or in Texas' case the lack of) to follow and expect big things. Saturday's game did a lot to improve our perception on a national scale, but until we do that for several years, the needle will not move much. The nation saw a Gutsy, Scrappy, Gopher team, but it will unfortunately be forgotten until we get more "face-time" with the nation. I think the game in the elements will be remembered for a long time, but a Gopher team that consistently puts out a quality team will take a few more years.

It's funny to hear some of the comments from our recruits on what they originally thought about Minnesota. Most say, "well, I know it gets cold up there." That is exactly the perception among the general public and bowl organizers.

It's starting to change which is very exciting!
 

Gopher07 said:
The CFP committee has nothing to do with bowl selection outside of the playoff and a select few other bowl games (Peach, Cotton, etc.). What does matter in the new selection process are 1) the conference and 2) the bowl. The conference is on the side of variety for the fans (or at least, they've stated they are), while the bowl will be on the side of $$ as usual. Whether 1) can outweigh 2) in the new system is yet to be seen.
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Not sure if that's what RJ meant when he's talking about the "committee" - the playoff committee won't have anything to do with where the Gophers end up - but if he's talking about bowl committees in general, then it's a multi-layered answer.

Looking back at the 1999 Gophers, who finished 8-3 (5-3), Wisky got the Rose Bowl thanks to that OT win at the Dome. Michigan (9-2, 6-2) was selected as a BCS at-large, and Michigan State (9-2, 6-2) went to the Citrus Bowl - everything was clear cut to that point. Purdue (7-4, 4-4) had budding superstar Drew Brees, and they jumped into the Outback Bowl ahead of both the Gophers and Penn State (9-3, 5-3), whose loss to Minnesota had sent them into a three-game tailspin to end the year. So that was the first injustice. Then, despite identical records and the head-to-head result, the Alamo Bowl chose the Nittany Lions, claiming at the time that it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get a program with the prestige of Penn State. That left the Gophers to go to El Paso.

Four years later, Minnesota (9-3, 5-3) lobbied hard to get the Alamo Bowl, but the invite went to Michigan State (8-4, 5-3). This time, the bowl used the head-to-head result (44-38 Sparty win in the Michigan hangover game) as the reason to turn down the Gophers.

In 2006, once again the Alamo Bowl had the Gophers on their plate. Minnesota (6-6, 3-5) had ended the year on a three-game winning streak, including a win over Iowa (6-6, 2-6) in the season finale, the third straight loss for the Hawkeyes. And yet, the Alamo Bowl still chose Iowa, despite the Gophers winning head-to-head matchup and owning a better Big Ten record.

Basically, the Alamo Bowl was determined to never end up with Minnesota in its game, and the only logical explanation is the perception that Gopher fans don't travel. Of course, as Bleed pointed out, nobody knows how well Gopher fans will travel until given a "good" bowl - I still insist that if Minnesota had been chosen for the 2003 Alamo Bowl against Nebraska, there would have been 10-15,000 Gopher fans at that game. And I reveled in how that game turned out to be a complete dud (17-3 Nebraska) with one of the bowl's worst attendance figures (only two Alamo Bowls in the last 16 years have had lower attendance - interestingly, the one with far and away the worst involved Wisconsin's revered fan base).

With the way bowl matchups are now going to be assigned, Minnesota will, in theory, have a chance to prove that they can bring fans to a higher-tier bowl. Win one of these final two games and that chance probably will come this year.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Not sure if that's what RJ meant when he's talking about the "committee" - the playoff committee won't have anything to do with where the Gophers end up - but if he's talking about bowl committees in general, then it's a multi-layered answer.
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I gotcha, I was responding to IAGopher:

IAGopherfan said:
The committee must have some respect for the Gophers considering they kept us ranked #25 on their list, even after we lost to tOSU.
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RonJohnsonII said:
We wondered was it our fan support and how they travel? Was it our team and that we really only had Tyrone Carter as a big name? We were clueless. To this day I still wonder the true answer Minnesota doesn't get the respect of some of these teams we constantly beat yet they get invited to better bowl games than us. What are your thoughts and has the committee began to see us in a better light?
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Television runs the show. Expected TV ratings are the most important thing in selection. They select the teams they think will bring in the TV numbers, which involves both name recognition and expected performance. Back then Minnesota had decades of embarrassment to overcome, though the PSU game did go a long way to changing people's perception and expectations. Still, PSU brought more TV sets. The Sun Bowl isn't the toilet bowl, though - it's one of the longest-running bowl games.

As far as "the committee" - we've got a ways to go before we need to worry about what "the committee" thinks. Win the conference first, then worry about that stuff.
 

With the new B1G tiered bowl selection process, the B1G has more say than the Bowl. Each Bowl submits a list of three teams and the B1G makes the selections. If we get screwed, blame the B1G.
 

bkrownd said:
Television runs the show. Expected TV ratings are the most important thing in selection. They select the teams they think will bring in the TV numbers, which involves both name recognition and expected performance. Back then Minnesota had decades of embarrassment to overcome, though the PSU game did go a long way to changing people's perception and expectations. Still, PSU brought more TV sets. The Sun Bowl isn't the toilet bowl, though - it's one of the longest-running bowl games.

As far as "the committee" - we've got a ways to go before we need to worry about what "the committee" thinks. Win the conference first, then worry about that stuff.
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This is what makes the system so absurd. Can you imagine if in NFL playoffs, the league were to say "well, the Eagles finished 10-6, but the Cowboys finished 9-7, which is almost as good as 10-6, and we think that a first round game between Dallas and San Francisco would generate better TV numbers than Philadelphia and San Francisco, so we are going to extend a playoff invitation to the Dallas Cowboys"?
 

It's kind of a double edge sword, big time bowls pass us up because their not convinced of our fan support, but when were constantly only
offered from less appealing lower tier and fringe bowls, to places fans don't want to travel to, it only makes us look worse. Getting invited
to the Texas Bowl back to back, or the Insight Bowl for what, 3 years? and all those years we spent only going to Nashville...it gets old and
keeps fans away. I think going to a Florida January bowl this year, would be a HUGE swing in fan traveling. I know come hell or high water,
i'd be there for any of the three, and likely TaxSlayer bowl in JAX.
 



And what more would a B1G fan up here in the north want more, than to go to NYC and sit outside in Yankee Stadium to
watch a bowl game..........................
 

Gopher07 said:
The CFP committee has nothing to do with bowl selection outside of the playoff and a select few other bowl games (Peach, Cotton, etc.). What does matter in the new selection process are 1) the conference and 2) the bowl. The conference is on the side of variety for the fans (or at least, they've stated they are), while the bowl will be on the side of $$ as usual. Whether 1) can outweigh 2) in the new system is yet to be seen.
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Yeah I took that as meaning the CFP committee. It will be interesting to see how the new system plays out with the B1G supposedly having more input. It would be nice to go somewhere other than Texas for once!
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Basically, the Alamo Bowl was determined to never end up with Minnesota in its game, and the only logical explanation is the perception that Gopher fans don't travel...

With the way bowl matchups are now going to be assigned, Minnesota will, in theory, have a chance to prove that they can bring fans to a higher-tier bowl. Win one of these final two games and that chance probably will come this year.
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You summarized it beautifully. Those azzhats on the Alamo bowl committee were determined to never invite Minnesota. I think for certain cities like San Antonio where there isn't the draw of Florida (people are gonna go to Phoenix or Orlando regardless of a bowl game) it all came down to perceptions of filling hotel rooms. We got screwed by that bowl twice. And both times it was basically "don't pizz on me and tell me it's raining"

Hopefully the new bowl system eliminates some of this chicanery. Not that I have any confidence that Delaney is going to lift a finger to help out Minnesota. Look at how he rigged the regular season schedule to give certain teams an easy road. Like several have said, the litmus test will be whether or not we get passed over by teams we beat in the regular season. Iowa, SCum, and hopefully Nebraska.
 

IF we make one of the 3 FLA bowl games, I'll be there no question.

I'm assuming bowl placements will be announced on Sunday 12-2 like in past years?
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
IF we make one of the 3 FLA bowl games, I'll be there no question.

I'm assuming bowl placements will be announced on Sunday 12-2 like in past years?
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They won't be announced until 12/7, as the playoff semifinal teams are not announced until then (and conference championships are taking place on 12/5 and 12/6).
 

highwayman said:
With the new B1G tiered bowl selection process, the B1G has more say than the Bowl. Each Bowl submits a list of three teams and the B1G makes the selections. If we get screwed, blame the B1G.
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It's probably a committee of one: Jim Delany.
 

Gopher07 said:
They won't be announced until 12/7, as the playoff semifinal teams are not announced until then (and conference championships are taking place on 12/5 and 12/6).
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It might get leaked out before, if it is known that 2 teams are playing in the playoff related bowls.
 

Gopher07 said:
They won't be announced until 12/7, as the playoff semifinal teams are not announced until then (and conference championships are taking place on 12/5 and 12/6).
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Got it- that's what I meant, the Sunday after the conference title games. Was looking at the November calendar by mistake :)
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
This is what makes the system so absurd. Can you imagine if in NFL playoffs, the league were to say "well, the Eagles finished 10-6, but the Cowboys finished 9-7, which is almost as good as 10-6, and we think that a first round game between Dallas and San Francisco would generate better TV numbers than Philadelphia and San Francisco, so we are going to extend a playoff invitation to the Dallas Cowboys"?
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We're talking about bowls, not playoffs. There's no "system". The bowls are independent invitational games, meant to be played for fun and profit.
 

We have to play well vs Nebraska and Wisconsin to be able to say much about our destination.
 

Just asking....what if we win out and finish 10-3 with wins against ranked teams three weeks in a row?
 

Selection Committee Responsibilities

Select the top four teams for the playoff, rank them and assign them to semifinal sites.

Rank the next group of teams to play in other New Year’s bowls if berth are available.

Select the highest-ranked champion from the five conferences without New Year’s bowl contracts.

Assign teams to New Year’s bowls

Create competitive matchups

Attempt to avoid rematches of regular-season games and repeat appearances

Consider geography



http://www.collegefootballplayoff.com/story?id=null
 

killme said:
Just asking....what if we win out and finish 10-3 with wins against ranked teams three weeks in a row?
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We'd be Big Ten champs and get the league's automatic berth into one of the New Year's bowls - either the Peach, Cotton or Fiesta.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Basically, the Alamo Bowl was determined to never end up with Minnesota in its game, and the only logical explanation is the perception that Gopher fans don't travel. Of course, as Bleed pointed out, nobody knows how well Gopher fans will travel until given a "good" bowl - I still insist that if Minnesota had been chosen for the 2003 Alamo Bowl against Nebraska, there would have been 10-15,000 Gopher fans at that game.
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This. I hate that stupid Alamo Bowl, and San Antonio too. Three times they looked for reasons NOT to take Minnesota. And yet, particularly in 2003, that Gopher team was very exciting and had some big playmakers. Glad that '03 Alamo Bowl was a total dud. It was nice revenge on Oregon; however, clearly in both '99 and '03 it was a letdown to drop to El Paso; though admittedly, the stadium nestled in the mountains there seems a cool place to play.

P.S. Sure would love to have Ron Johnson catching footballs on the current team! Great Gopher receiver, hands of glue. Arguably, only Decker was a better Gopher WR in the past 15 years or so.
 

So now that we are 5-3, are we solidly in tier 1 category? (citrus, holiday, outback)

Does 6-2 get us into the capital one/citrus bowl?

If you asked me now, i would say yes.
 

Gopher028 said:
And what more would a B1G fan up here in the north want more, than to go to NYC and sit outside in Yankee Stadium to
watch a bowl game..........................
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Well I think we've done well enough that we won't have to worry about going to that one:) I think we either go to the Outback or the Holiday and I really don't care which one. In fact I think I'd rather go to the Holiday because it owns its night and time slot and the Big Ten has to play too many SEC teams in post-season anyway.
 

afurry91 said:
So now that we are 5-3, are we solidly in tier 1 category? (citrus, holiday, outback)

Does 6-2 get us into the capital one/citrus bowl?

If you asked me now, i would say yes.
Click to expand...

Yes, Tier I
Plan on Florida or San Diego
 

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