By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — Memphis will replace Shreveport as the safety net for any Arkansas football team that is bowl eligible with fewer than eight victories.
The Liberty Bowl moved to the forefront when the Independence Bowl and the Southeastern Conference parted ways. In turn, the SEC has replaced the Independence with the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville. The four-year agreement, plus the Cotton Bowl’s move to Jan. 2, means all three bowl games on Jan. 1 will be in Florida and will match the SEC against the Big Ten.
As long as the Independence Bowl was hooked up with the SEC, the Razorbacks were coveted because of the large contingent of Arkansas fans nearby. Often, bowl reps from Shreveport would court Arkansas throughout the season and the Razorbacks would play their way into a better offer.
Still, the Independence Bowl always came calling.
The fact that the Razorbacks sold more than 50,000 tickets to the Jan. 2 Liberty Bowl makes Arkansas equally welcome in Memphis.
From Little Rock, driving to Shreveport or Memphis is a breeze. From Little Rock to Jacksonville, it’s about 820 miles.
The SEC will soon announce the pecking order for the bowls, but it is unlikely that the Gator will rank ahead of the Outback or the Cotton. Those games in Tampa and Dallas are in place to protect teams that do well in the league’s two divisions, but fall short of the Sugar Bowl and the Capital One Bowl.
For the past four years, the SEC champion has won the national title. This year and the year before, the loser in the SEC championship game fulfilled the league’s commitment to the Sugar Bowl. The Capital One Bowl in Orlando picks next.
After that, the Outback, Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, and Cotton work with the conference office, but the Outback has first preference of teams from the Eastern Division and the Cotton has first choice of teams from the Western Division. This year, the Outback passed on the Eastern Division and grabbed Auburn, which is as close to Tampa as some of the schools in the Eastern Division, and the Cotton took Ole Miss.
Proximity to the lesser bowl sites plays a part in the invitation process because a school must guarantee the sale of several thousand tickets and that can be a financial disaster. In 2008, Western Michigan paid $450,000 to the Texas Bowl for 11,000 tickets, barely sold 500, and lost more than $412,000, according to published reports.
Selling 10,000-12,000 to Dallas, Memphis, or Shreveport is stress-free for Arkansas. The same assignment is dicey when the destination is in Northeast Florida. Even this year, when the Razorbacks might have played their way into the Capital One with a victory at LSU, there had to be concern about whether fans would make the long trek and ante up $80 for lower bowl and upper deck center seating.
In his recent wrap-up of the season, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino mentioned that the Razorbacks did not play well in the sub-freezing weather in Memphis and that he would prefer a warm-weather bowl game. “You can see why there aren’t a lot of points scored in cold-weather situations throughout the country because it did affect us in our ability to throw the ball, in our ability to catch the ball …,” he said.
In January, 64 is the average high temperature in Jacksonville. Orlando is even warmer.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.
