Colleges

College football enters bowl season with intrigue

By TIMES STAFF
Published December 24, 2007

The college football bowl season is in full swing, already with a share of confusion and scandal.

The topsy-turvy season produced the most uncertainty ever over who would play in the national championship game. For the first time since the Bowl Championship Series was established in 1999, a team with two losses, Louisiana State (11-2), will play for the title. LSU meets Ohio State (11-1) on Jan. 7 in New Orleans.

The scandal primarily comes from Florida State, which will take the field against Kentucky in the Dec. 31 Music City Bowl without as many as 25 players, primarily because of an academic misconduct investigation.

What are the chances all this will lead to a playoff system?

Not good. For all the fan and media pressure in favor of a playoff system, university presidents are strongly opposed, and they make the decision.

How many bowl games are there, and how is it decided who goes where?

There are 32 bowls this season. Most have tie-ins with conferences that establish a pecking order for choosing schools. For instance, Tampa's Outback Bowl gets to choose a Southeastern Conference team after the Bowl Championship Series chooses its teams and Orlando's Capital One Bowl picks its SEC team.

Speaking of Outback and Capital One, how many of these games have corporate sponsors and why?

All of the bowls have sponsors and virtually all have naming-rights sponsorships. The sponsor pays to put its name on the bowl, hoping to get the maximum publicity for its money.

How much of the money goes to the schools?

Bowl payouts vary from $300,000 per team for the Papajohns.com to $17-million for the national championship game. The money primarily comes from sponsors and television revenue, but the schools generally don't keep all that money for themselves. For instance, the payout listed for the Sun Bowl, which features the University of South Florida, is $1.9-million. But that money will go to the Big East Conference, which includes USF, and be pooled with bowl revenue from other Big East teams and shared among the league's football members. USF expects to receive $1.5-million. Much of that will be spent on the trip. The school spent more than $1-million on its Meineke Car Care Bowl trip in 2005.

What Florida schools are in bowls this year?

Florida Atlantic beat Memphis on Friday in the New Orleans Bowl. Central Florida plays Mississippi State on Saturday in the Liberty Bowl. On Dec. 31, USF meets Oregon in the Sun Bowl and FSU plays Kentucky in the Music City Bowl. Florida plays Michigan on Jan. 1 in the Capital One Bowl.

[Last modified December 23, 2007, 21:16:27]