With the Bowl Championship Series announcing that they're looking to add a fifth member, I suggest they look no further than the Cotton Bowl (registration required).
Some have suggested that the Capital One Bowl slot in as #5, but I'm dubious about that proposition. It was a travesty, and an insult to the heritage of college football that the Cotton was left out of the BCS in the first place. Here's hoping BCS officials realize the error of their ways, and correct one of their bigggest mistakes.
Besides, where would you rather see the mythical national championship decided: the bowl where Joe Montana led Notre Dame to one of the greatest comebacks in college football history, or the field where Georgia and Florida State battled to an exciting 17-17 tie in 1984?
Taking the opposition just for fun, it’s not as if the Capital One Bowl (formerly the Florida Citrus Bowl, originally the Tangerine Bowl) came out of nowhere. The first game was played in January 1947, just ten years after the first Cotton Bowl. Both game’s stadiums seat about 70,000, have had solid attendance even in recent years, and are played in travel-friendly metropolitan areas.
Most of the Cotton Bowl’s historical value came from its 50-year conference tie-in with the Southwest Conference, which dissolved in 1995. Since then, it’s really hard to distinguish the two bowls on tradition and importance grounds.
Now if you want to argue the Cotton Bowl should have been included in the original BCS over the Fiesta Bowl, you’ve got an argument. The Fiesta has only been played since 1971, and it’s principal value has always been as the place to dump at-large teams. This was handy in the pre-BCS era because it made it possible to stage 1-versus-2 games when conference tie-ins weren’t an issue.
Remember also, the Cotton Bowl was part of the original Bowl Coalition that predated the BCS. The Cotton’s place, however, existed largely because the Rose Bowl wasn’t on board yet.
And looking at the big picture, while the five-bowl BCS addresses the major problems the Tulane faction brought up, I think this deal extends the BCS past its financial viability point. A four-bowl coalition was asking a bit much, especially when you sell it as a single television package. I’m not sure ABC/ESPN will be eager to fit another “major” bowl into its schedule. They may have to split the package with another network.
I wish they’d pick the Peach, but that’s just because I’d like to see Atlanta involved in the BCS.
The Cotton Bowl is the only bowl currently televised by Fox. My sneaky, suspicious mind says that they bring it into the BCS (and therefore under the ABC/ESPN college football colossus) just to cut Fox out of the business entirely.
Never mind that the result of the ABC/ESPN domination of the bowls has screwed the smaller bowls out of decent day/timeslots (and thus made it impossible for fans to go to the games) if they want any TV money at all…
It might could be a pipe dream, but the Outback Bowl is thinking about going for that fifth slot. It seems like there’s almost as much disincentive to it, though.