College Football Bowl question (non-bb obviously)

[JaneDoe]

As a casual fan of Texas college football (not just UT), I was disappointed for TCU to not get a better bowl bid.  I figured I was just not well informed but am backed up by  this article.  Anyone agree?

[Gulf Coast Playboy]

This might be slightly over-simplified, but basically this is because of contractual "tie-in's" between the major conferences and the bowls (assuming, of course, that TCU is otherwise deserving of a "better" bowl, which is arguable but supportable).

These tie-in's involve the better, non-BCS bowls (such as the Holiday, Cotton, Peach, etc.) having mutual deals with the major conferences, so that any given bowl knows they will never have worse than, for example, the 3rd best team from the Big XII vs. the 4th best team from the SEC.  The result is that you will never see a team like TCU (from a "non-BCS" conference) ever go to a particularly good bowl unless they qualify for an actual BCS bowl (like Utah last year), most likely pursuant to whatever objective, "automatic qualification" criteria is currently in place for that.

[Cnote]

I'd tend to agree with you, and this article, but they lost to Freaking SMU!

[wingnut]

The BCS is changing once again next year.  They're adding a 5th bow.  Basically whichever bowl hosts the national title game (Rose, Sugar, Orange or Fiesta) will play two games at that stadium.  A lesser bowl on or around New Year's day, and then the national title game will actually be played a week later after all the other bowls are completed.  It's not a playoff, just a way to include 10 teams in the BCS instead of 8.

Anyway, the selection criteria is convuluted, but if a school from a non-BCS conference is ranked (top 12 I think) they have to be invited to the BCS.  There was a guy on the radio talking about how it will change, and how under the new format, TCU would be in the BCS right now.  Anyway, starting next year, one mid-conference team a year is just about guaranteed a BCS bid.