For me, with a very few exceptions (see 96 Cotton in my fan timeline) the bowl game is typically the 7th or 8th most exciting game on the schedule. Absolutely I'll watch and be pulling for the Cougs, but I'd rather lose this game than any of the 12 regular season games.

It's why I like Indy. The best games are regular season (except the anointed 4) so give me the best possible regular season schedule. Obviously this is better done in a P5 conference, but our Indy schedules are way better than our old MWC ones.

The Boise St route of playing 1 good team and a bunch of patsies trying to get 1 good meaningless game in January is far inferior. Just schedule those teams during the season in far more interesting games.