As fans it’s easy to focus on the bowls from our perspective only. Notice in her 2 reasons for needing a bowl, she has a completely different perspective. It’s not about fans, but about developing players and getting recruits. You trade out one of the OOC teams this year and put in a big name team, you’re trading a good chance of a win for a sure loss. It would generate short-term buzz (leading up to the game only) to have a big-name team on the schedule. As most have pointed out, this team will be doing everything it can to squeak into a bowl. The player development and recruiting boost will have a longer-term benefit than the big-name/sure-loss game would. You could claim that it doesn’t reward fans to have that kind of schedule, but doing everything you can now with a team that stands a lesser chance of succeeding in order to give yourself the best chance for a good team in the future makes a lot of sense. And if it does give you a better team in the future, that’s better for fans in the end. It’s like the national security vs. personal freedom balance and this is a time when national security side needs more attention (in the analogy; not getting into wider political statements).
