Sun Bowl Gone per Brett

[Cow Pie]

I'm glad that El Paso is gone... now if they can only do something about that International Bowl  ;D

I agree that the Music City would be a good fit if we can get it.

[crambone]

I think we need a full court press on the Music City Bowl. The ACC is going to be offering their #6 team and we can offer them our #3. Plus it is against the SEC and is a geographical fit for all traveling within our Conference. If we can land the Music City and drop the International I still think that we end up in a much stronger position in this next bowl cycle. 1 BCS, 2 ACC, 2 SEC, and one CUSA, not too bad if you ask me.

1. BCS

2. Champs - vs. ACC

3. Music City - vs. SEC

4. Meineke - vs. ACC

5. Papajohns - vs. SEC

6. St. Pete - vs. CUSA

Me likey!!!

[BullDoug]

I'm not sure the MCC will except a BE 4th.  Has that been reported?  Champs & St. Pete will be good for the league's FL recruiting.  I'd like to lose the Pizza Crust Bowl.  Birmingham is the pits for a visit.

[Guest]

Doug - it was reported when the Sun Bowl was pitched the 3rd selection and Notre Dame.  I wonder if the folks in Charlotte are asking for ND as well...

[BleacherBull]

Glad I went to the Sun Bowl when I had the chance.  Had great fun, but a long way to travel for a grab-your-ankles-and-bend-over loss to a team you were favored to beat.  Nashville could be fun.  I really hate all these conference tie-in contracts.  Nobody wants to go to the same bowl destination over and over again.  This year could be our first return trip to a bowl.  GB

[USF_Grouper]

Big East really needs to do something to improve their stock.  This is just embarrassing.  Tranghese consistently talked about how he felt we were in a better negotiating position as the bowls realign.  Our previous line-up wasn't great, but he felt we got would we could given the recent defections.  Looks like he was blowing a lot of smoke around.

[usf97]

I still think we need to hold our judgement on this until all the contracts are done. Right now, if nothing changes we swaped the hybrid Sun/Gator with ND up to 2 times for Champs with ND once. Not great but whatever, not a huge downgrade. I would never be able to make that El Paso trip anyway.

Now if we still pick up a bowl, which I think is likely becasue there are a lot of dominoes falling for the other bowls, then I think this would still be an upgrade. Also, who wants to go to a bowl who has made it so blatantly obvious that they only want ND. Screw em'. The Music City would be ideal but the Emerald or Independance would still be an upgrade over the status quo.

[redfisher78]

I still think we need to hold our judgement on this until all the contracts are done. Right now, if nothing changes we swaped the hybrid Sun/Gator with ND up to 2 times for Champs with ND once. Not great but whatever, not a huge downgrade. I would never be able to make that El Paso trip anyway.

Now if we still pick up a bowl, which I think is likely becasue there are a lot of dominoes falling for the other bowls, then I think this would still be an upgrade. Also, who wants to go to a bowl who has made it so blatantly obvious that they only want ND. Screw em'. The Music City would be ideal but the Emerald or Independance would still be an upgrade over the status quo.

We didnt just switch the Gator for the Champs. We switched the Gator for the Champs and lost a pretty good bowl in the Sun, against a high level BCS opponent. That is a huge deal. Frankly it doesnt matter if YOU werent ever going to travel to El Paso anyway. The fact that the BE wont have a chance to go to El Paso is the bigger issue.The turnout we had a couple years ago was  amazing when compared to Oregon's. Anyway you shake it, this is a huge loss, unless we can somehow squeeze out an Emerald or Music City Bowl. But it is plainly obvious no one is excited about picking a Big East team.

[usf97]

Redfisher 78, I don't know if you fully understand how our bowl agreement with the Gator/Sun works. We never had both bowls in the same year. Now there has been some speculation lately that we would get the Sun on top of adding the Champs which truely would have been an upgrade to our present situation. However what we have had 2006-2009 is one bowl, Gator OR Sun. So if all things remain the same, we have swapped the one bowl slot, Gator OR Sun, for the Champs Bowl. Not great but will our perceived weak travelling fan base look better going to Orlando or El Paso/Jacksonville. I think we do well going to J-ville but not El Paso. You may feel we had good turnout for the Sun but the consensus out there is that the USF, Pitt, Oregon all had weak turnout for the Sun. They don't seem to be giving us brownie points that our turnout was "less bad" than others. We didn't help ourselves with the weak showing at the St. Pete Bowl either.

[USF_Grouper]

We didn't help ourselves with the weak showing at the St. Pete Bowl either.

Didn't we sell everything they would give us?  St. Pete bowl was just wickedly disorganized.

I am not sure I'd go back to that bowl anyway.  I know we need to support USF at any bowl.  My seats were OK, but that environment just wasn't configured for football.  Some fans were so high up I think they need Os!