I don't really have a dog in the hunt either way. I can see either side of it. Some arguments are stronger than others. I come from a time where you had a cache of New Year's Day bowl games: Cotton was always first and believe it or not the Sugar Bowl was usually played around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and sometimes earlier. The Rose Bowl was the PRIME game (started around 4 central time, maybe a tad earlier) and then you had the Orange Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl was an afterthought until the 1986 national title game (when they moved it to Friday night and changed the history of college football); it was more of a local showcase for one of the Arizona teams (or whatever WAC champion) that grew out of none of the big bowl games (all except the Rose Bowl located more easterly in the USA) picking unbeaten Arizona State, leaving them with a Peach Bowl appearance. The Capitol One Bowl - now prestigious - used to be called the Tangerine Bowl and was played sometime between Christmas Day and New Year's Day (usually).
And one of my favorite memories as a child was the Bluebonnet Bowl on New Year's Eve, often ending after midnight so it was a New Year (of course, we'd switch over to the ball drop in Times Square during the game - and those games would be sold to local affiliates via Mizlou or someone else in the pre-all bowl games on ESPN/Fox days).
But a lot has changed.
1) Virtually every game nowadays is on TV somewhere. Back when the bowl games were more prestigious it was the ONLY CHANCE the entire year you got to watch some of the teams. Prior to 1984 (IIRC) there was a limit to three appearances per year on TV plus the bowl game. Anyone wanna guess how many Alabama games were seen on NATIONAL TV in 1980? Try the Tennessee game and the Notre Dame game. That's it. And then the Cotton Bowl, of course. ESPN was an infant network (and their broadcasts were actually done and then shown AFTER the game had already been played) that 1/2 the country didn't get. Alabama's 1980 upset loss to MSU that ended a 28-game unbeaten streak? Not shown even in Mississippi!!! (It was edited for airing on Sunday night for an hour-long program). That is unheard of today.
On the other hand, the 2010 Alabama-Ga State game was played on television on ESPNU and everyone who wanted to watch it did.
2) The notion the bowl games are a really big deal has been diluted by several factors. One was Notre Dame going to the Fiesta Bowl in 1995 with a 6-4-1 record, an absolute farce of a selection. In fact, this garbage happened all the time. In 1991, unbeaten Miami had a chance to square off against Spurrier's Florida team in the Sugar Bowl. But since they were number one they could do what they wanted and - if you'll go back and look at the Hurricanes Dynasty in the 1980s - you'll notice an amazing number of things like: a) in both 1983 and 1985, Florida beat them and caused them no end of trouble in their title hopes; b) Miami was actually quite ordinary AWAY from their home field at the Orange Bowl in bowl games (they lost away from home bowl games in 1985, 1986, and 1992 - two of them to SEC teams in absolute blowouts....and despite being heavy favorites against Alabama in the 1990 Sugar Bowl, they only led 20-17 at the half); c) Miami ducked tough competition whenever they could, which might explain why they wanted a rematch in 1992 with FSU rather than to face Alabama. The Canes, for all their bravado, were slightly above average when they played SEC teams (I did a count during their run and I think they were 8-4.....four losses to the SEC during a span when they only lost 14 games in a decade). Miami instead opted to play Nebraska at home - in fact, that selection so outraged the voters that Washington damn near won BOTH polls because of the votes Miami lost. Teams able to duck tough competition has mostly been done away with at least as far as the BCSNCG but this helped some of the dilution as well.
3) Some of you need to get through your minds that it is NOT ONLY about Alabama and people do not have the same expectations or standards that we do.
This is about MONEY - schools getting money to stay open. That's why smaller schools send their athletes out to get creamed and walk away from BDS with a million dollars to fund other school programs. The number of programs actually MAKING money in football is exceedingly small. It's not that I disagree with some of the basic points regarding a champion/championship but places like Kansas don't really care about that. That's a place they'd be happy to go 6-5, play in a lower-tier bowl, and be content with the crowd watching the game on TV.
I do think from my aged perspective there is simply no prestige anymore to 85% of the bowl games but if they're on? Yeah, it usually beats anything else on TV. Heck, I even watched the jr college national title game awhile back for the same reason.
Although to me it does beg the question of why we can't bring back the Blue-Gray Classic.....
