College football fans are excited about the upcoming playoff, with ACC champ Clemson facing Oklahoma and Alabama’s Nick Saban taking on his old team, Michigan State. UNC missed out on a “New Year’s Six” bowl, but Tar Heel fans are gearing up for a high-profile matchup with Baylor in the Russell Athletic Bowl on December 29.

The undercard bowls, on the other hand, are a little sketchy. There are 40 bowls this season – so many that there weren’t enough qualifying teams to fill them. (Ordinarily a team needs at least six wins to qualify for a bowl game, but this year the NCAA was forced to let some 5-7 teams play.)

Is college football suffering from too many bowl games? Or – since it’s all about the payday anyway, and since the bowls give teams more exposure and a chance to travel to a fun holiday location – should we stop laughing at the “AutoNation Cure Bowl” and just let ’em play?

Deborah Stroman is a professor at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and an expert on sport analytics. She discussed that question – and more – with Aaron Keck this week on WCHL.

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