3 new bowl games are reportedly official for 2015
There will be three new bowl games in 2015.
According to ESPN, the NCAA made the games official and they will be hosted in Austin, Texas, Orlando and Tucson, Ari. An official announcement is expected later this week from the NCAA.
Matchups for the new bowls are as follows: Tucson (Mountain West versus Conference USA), Austin, Texas (American versus Sun Belt) and Orlando (American versus Sun Belt).
The three additional games mean there will be 42 bowl games at the conclusion of the 2015 season, counting the College Football Playoff Championship, and 82 teams will be required to fill up all the bowl spots. The bowl in Orlando, the Cure Bowl, is set for December 19 while the game in Tucson, the Arizona Bowl, is on December 29.
The game in Austin would be played at the University of Texas' Stadium. The Orlando game would also give the city three bowl games with the continued presence of the Russell Athletic Bowl and the Citrus Bowl.
While there were teams over .500 left out of bowls last year, the ever-increasing bowl lineup means there is a greater chance a team worse than .500 could go to a bowl to fill the spot. And it also means that there's no way in hell the "bowl system is dead" argument has any chance to survive in this new College Football Playoff era. As long as the bowl system continues to be lucrative for those that run it (organizers and ESPN, which televises most bowls and also owns some of them), it will continue to prosper.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
