2010 Bowl Games: Temple, Western Michigan Are Postseason Snubs

Either the Boise State Broncos or LSU Tigers got screwed out of a BCS bowl appearance by the Connecticut Huskies’ automatic qualification, but what about the Temple Owls? Temple won’t be going to a bowl at all, despite a winning record and a two-touchdown win over the Fiesta Bowl-bound Huskies. The Owls were in line for their second-straight bowl appearance, which had never been done before in school history.

UConn went 8-4 against the nation’s 54th-best schedule, while Temple went 8-4 against the 73rd-best schedule. Is that what the difference between a seat at the head table and a seat in the back yard should look like? Complicated conference tie-ins lock certain teams into bowls, whether they deserve them or not. What other sport guarantees postseason positioning based on conference, not merit?

Temple and MAC mates Western Michigan were the only bowl-eligible teams to miss out. With only so many spots to go around it’s hard to get worked up about the diss of 6-6 WMU. But leaving aside the fact that UConn might be the worst BCS team ever and could be a part of the worst BCS bowl ever, 13 teams without winning records earned bowl bids.

On a much, much smaller scale, Temple is a victim of the same system that will keep TCU from competing for the national title. Only two teams get to play in the BCS National Championship, and only 70 teams get to play in bowls. Sure, that’s just about everybody, which makes Temple’s exclusion all the more damaging. A team pretty much has to have a bad year to miss out on a bowl, and Temple did not have a bad year.