So as fashionable as it may be to protest the saturation of bowls, I'm thrilled about the approval of four new games - including two that stand to help Utah schools find postseason homes. The only thing that would be better is 59 bowls, leaving out one Division I-A team, and I could probably get by without watching Kent State (sorry, Golden Flashes).
Having said that, I did learn a couple of things in college. One is how to keep score in bowling, a sadly lost art in this automated age. The other is the point of diminishing returns.
The birth of the New Mexico Bowl, one of a potential 32 bowls this season, is a clear illustration that college football passed that point several freeway exits back.
Other than people like me - and let's all hope that's a fraction of the population, for the sake of society - will anybody watch this thing?
ESPN believes so, which is both comforting to me and frightening to others. The network will own the bowl, designed to match teams from the Mountain West Conference and the Western Athletic Conference.
The New Mexico Bowl may never have happened, except the New Mexico Lobos lost their final game last season and were not among the four MWC teams invited to bowls. It's the same principle that spawned the Fiesta Bowl, when Arizona State's powerful teams were being left out, and look what that bowl has become.
But it's a little different when we're talking about a 6-5 New Mexico team. Besides, the Lobos will be allowed to play at home only once every three years.
Imagining pairings such as Brigham Young-Boise State, Utah-Fresno State and New Mexico-Utah State is fairly interesting, but this is what the New Mexico Bowl will more frequently deliver: Colorado State (6-6) vs. Louisiana Tech (6-6), live from University Stadium.
Somebody is going to leave Albuquerque with a losing record, almost every year. Bowl eligibility is becoming a little silly in the era of 12-game seasons, especially considering that about two-thirds of schools will be playing Division I-AA opponents. All somebody such as Colorado State has to do this year is beat Weber State in the opener and win five other games out of 11 to qualify for the postseason.
Then again, Weber State had more players drafted from one family this past weekend than were taken from the entire rosters of Mississippi, Arizona State, CSU, Texas Tech, North Carolina and several other I-A schools.
Earning a bowl bid is now about twice as easy as getting into the NCAA basketball tournament, though. There's no guarantee that a 6-6 team from the WAC or Mountain West will receive a bid, but it can happen. Start with the idea that about every other year, a team from one of those leagues will rank in the top 12 of the Bowl Championship Series standings and automatically qualify for one of the five BCS games (counting the newest bowl, played annually at the site of the national title game).
Now, consider the New Mexico Bowl will get the third or fourth available choice from the MWC, which also has contracts with games in Las Vegas, Fort Worth and San Diego. And just like that, we're down to a 6-6 team. Factoring in the BCS opportunity, the Mountain West now has more bowl tie-ins (five) than players who were taken in the first five rounds of the draft (four).
This is all good news for the WAC's Utah State. Considering their annual nonconference schedule, someday rising to 6-6 would be a huge achievement for the Aggies, who would love to play in Albuquerque. Fans would follow them.
But for the average program, 6-6 would be viewed as underachieving and ticket sales would be a struggle, not that ESPN seems to mind. The network just wants to create more programming, apparently because "Bonds on Bonds" is not scheduled to air in late December.
It's all becoming just too much. Except for me.
kkragthorpe@sltrib.com
