This is Not a Fix

So maybe I am not getting this, but I don't see how this helps us. The ACC has just announced that the selection for bowls next year is "new and improved". After reading his own description on the AJC, I don't see how ACC Commissioner John Swofford has helped anything. The Music City (Nashville), Emerald (San Francisco), and Car Care (Charlotte) will pick fifth, sixth, and seventh on a rotating basis. Seems like the only difference is the rotating basis part.

Maybe I am missing it, but I still don't see anything about teams finishing at a certain position being tied into certain bowls. I don't see anything here that prevents the Tangerine (Champs Sports) Bowl from picking a team ranked behind us that might bring more fans, like say FSU, and relegating us to San Francisco again. If Car Care or Music City picked ahead of Emerald, as evidenced by this year, there is no guarantee they would pick us. If Emerald picked ahead of the other two, they would more than likely jump at the chance to get a nationally recognized school like ours to increase the national awareness of their bowl.

What I do see is a system where "the Charlotte, Nashville and San Francisco bowls will tell the ACC which teams they want, the schools will tell the ACC which bowls they want, and ACC commissioner John Swofford and assistant commissioner Mike Finn will "go in a smoke-filled room" and make the final decisions." Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't it these sort of smoke-filled room sort of decisions that got GT sent out west in the first place?

This is not a fix to the bowl woes of the ACC. I realize that we are new to big time football, but this seems like painting over a rusty car. Until we get a system in place with some transperancy and the bowl bids go to the teams that earned it on the field, we will always have controversy. This year it was Boston College and Georgia Tech. Who is going to get the shaft by this system next year?

What I still don't understand is why we even have a tie-in with Boise anyway! It seems that if the ACC cannot guarantee that schools with better records will not get snubbed in favor of schools with larger regional fan bases, the only fix would be to move all of our bowl games to this region! How about even this side of the country! I am all about having a matchup with the PAC-10, but where is our matchup with the Big-10? Why is there no bowl game in the D.C. area? Or New York City? Why do we only have one non-BCS bowl after New Year's Day? Why are the majority of our bowls paying the bare minimum to their participants? Why do we have a matchup with the WAC? Even Conference-USA would be better, at least they are on our side of the world. These are the sorts of issues that need to be resolved if we are ever going to fix the ACC's bowl situation, not more wish lists and smoke-filled rooms.
-yb