I think the SEC made a mistake with grouping 6 bowls together in a tier.

[Johnson85]

I think it creates apathy once you get to that level, which can still be a pretty good season. If we finish 8-4 and end up at the Liberty, which is a real possibility, people are not going to be excited, even though technically that's no difference prestigewise than ending up in the Outback. I understand the SEC was able to get more money in payouts by inducing the lower prestige bowls to up their payouts, but I'm not sure long term that's going to be worth it if people start viewing any of those six bowls as not being a reward since you can get there with a 6 win season in some years, and a 7 win season in almost every year.

Ideally, the bowls should be ranked, and then they should be filled by going down the CFP rankings, and then by SEC wins after that, with bowl committees being able to pick a team with one fewer wins if they aren't in the same division (or if they are in the same division, if the team with fewer conference wins has the same number of division wins). To avoid fatigue with a particular bowl by a particular fanbase, teams should only be able to get dropped a tier if they've been to a particular bowl game in the past three years, and can't get dropped more than one tier.

So something like:

1. Sugar
2. Citrus
3. Outback
4. Texas
5. Gator
6. Music City
7. Belk
8. Liberty
9. Independence
10. Birmingham


Or alternatively, still have tiers, but put no more than two bowls in each tier, so there is still a difference between finishing 4th and finishing 8th int eh conference as far as bowl options.

1. Sugar
2. Citrus
3/4. Outback/Texas
5/6. Gator/Music City
7/8. Liberty/Belk
9/10/ Birmingham/Independence

[msstate7]

With there were no tie ins to any bowls. Let teams play all over the country. It gets boring being up for same bowls every year

[Tbonewannabe]

I thought the group was Outback, Gator, Belk, Music City, Texas then Liberty then Birmingham (is Independence still have a SEC slot automatically?)

The reason I say that is because we didn't send a SEC team to the Liberty last year or Birmingham. Did it just work out that the Liberty voluntarily stayed out of the SEC bowl pecking order?

[drunkernhelldawg]

With there were no tie ins to any bowls. Let teams play all over the country. It gets boring being up for same bowls every year

me too. bowls are about having fun, and new experiences are more fun than same old same old.

[Political Hack]

With there were no tie ins to any bowls. Let teams play all over the country. It gets boring being up for same bowls every year

Agree, outside of Nashville I really don't want to visit any of those places if it's not a big time bowl. I'd welcome some obscure out of the norm bowl in Annapolis, the Bronx, or the Bahamas.

[StarkVegasSteve]

I want an 8-4 season, but I'm afraid 8-4 would put us out of range for the Music City Bowl, which is where I think a majority of our fan base would prefer to go at this point.

[Tbonewannabe]

I want an 8-4 season, but I'm afraid 8-4 would put us out of range for the Music City Bowl, which is where I think a majority of our fan base would prefer to go at this point.

Why do you think that? We would probably have the best record for a team that the Music City has a choice of.

A&M has to win either AU or LSU to get to 8 wins. They have UM and UAB which should be wins to get them to 7.

AU has to beat 2 out of 3 of A&M, UGA, Bama to get to 8 wins.

SC to get to 8 wins has to beat UF and Clemson.

Mizzou has to win the last 4 - UF, Vandy, UT, and Ark.