NCAA Approves Three New College Football Bowl Games In Austin, Orlando, Tucson

Three new bowl games "have been approved by the NCAA" for the '15 season, "bringing college football's postseason perilously close to a tipping point" with a total of 42 games, according to George Schroeder of USA TODAY. NCAA Championships & Alliances Managing Dir Damani Leech yesterday confirmed that applications "were approved for bowls in Austin, Orlando and Tucson," meaning a total of 82 teams "could go bowling." That figure in the last 20 years "has more than doubled." Football Bowl Association Exec Dir Wright Waters said of nearing a saturation point, "There's got to be one, but I don't know where it is." Schroeder notes five new bowls were played in '14, and the '15 total "would have been 43 bowls if a group from Little Rock, which had submitted an application to the NCAA and would have been tied in with the Sun Belt and American Athletic conferences, had not recently decided to postpone its plans." The new bowls "all have ties to conferences." The Cure Bowl in Orlando and the "as yet unnamed Austin Bowl will host American Athletic and Sun Belt conference teams," while the Tucson Bowl -- "tentatively named the Arizona Bowl -- will feature Conference USA and Mountain West teams" (USA TODAY, 4/6). CBSSPORTS.com's Dennis Dodd noted the certification "creates an even further strain on the system to find enough bowl-eligible teams to populate these new bowls." Approximately 64% of the FBS "will now be bowling." For Austin's bowl game, "playing at a nearby minor league baseball stadium remains a possibility" (CBSSPORTS.com, 5/5). But ESPN.com's Brett McMurphy cited a source as saying that the bowl in Austin is "tentatively scheduled to be played at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium." A source said that the Arizona Bowl at the Univ. of Arizona's stadium "is scheduled for Dec. 29 and expected to be televised on CBS Sports Network." A source said that the Cure Bowl is "set for Dec. 19 at the Citrus Bowl" and also "will air on CBSSN. An official announcement about the new bowl games "is expected from the NCAA later this week" (ESPN.com, 5/5).