Kirk Herbstreit Wants College Football To Get Rid Of The Majority Of Bowl Games 'Nobody Cares About'

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There are 43 bowl games in today's world of college football. To say the market is saturated would be a gross understatement, and Kirk Herbstreit has had enough of it.

The popularity of bowl games, even among fans of said teams playing in the contest, isn't what it used to be. There are too many bowl games to begin with and the addition of the College Football Playoff isn't helping the cause, with the Playoff expanding to 12 teams in 2024 the many lower-tier bowl games certainly aren't going to gain any popularity.

While talking about the landscape of college football on ESPN this week, Herbstreit suggested that the majority of bowl games need to be removed entirely while turning the 12-team Playoff into a March Madness-esque event.

"I think the 12-team playoff is going to create a lot of buzz. How many games will that be, seven total? You have the quarterfinals, the semis and the national championship," Herbstreit said.

"I'm a college basketball fan, we all get our brackets out, March Madness...Tell me about the NIT, how's that going for you? You know who is even in the NIT? That's where the bowls are going next year. I think you eliminate the bowls. Nobody wants to play in them, don't play bowls."

Kirk Herbstreit wouldn't mind seeing most of the college football bowl games be eliminated. (Photo by Steve Limentani/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

"We'll have the 12 teams, we'll get excited about those and if you want to add maybe five or six more bowls outside of that, then do five six. We're getting to a point that is ridiculous. We're putting 6-6 teams in bowl games nobody cares about."

Herbstreit's point about 6-6 teams getting into bowl games being absolutely ridiculous certainly checks out, and so too does his note about March Madness.

If there's anything sports fans, especially American sports fans love more than anything, it's brackets. While you could argue the NCAA Tournament has actually gotten too large, a 12-team bracket in college football should create even more buzz while killing all that remains for the meaningless bowl games people can't even name anymore.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and all other happenings in the world of golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.