It's partially the fault of the P5/BCS and partially due to being an independent. The BCS conferences killed the bowl season several years ago. It used to be pretty fun when you didn't know who was going to each bowl until the end of the season. Many fans here are too young to realize it didn't used to be that bowls were tied to conferences except for conference champions. When the bowls started signing up also the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th team, etc., it made the bowls far less interesting.