Football:Rockets Left Out of Bowl Lineup
12/3/2000 12:00:00 PM | Football
Dec. 3, 2000
Toledo, OH - Out of the 124 schools that play Division I-A football, 50 will be going to bowl games this year.
The 25th-best team in the country won't be one of them.
The final lineup of bowl games was announced today, and No. 25 Toledo learned it will be staying home. The Rockets had held out hope for an at-large bid to either the Silicon Valley Bowl or the Las Vegas Bowl. But UNLV's win late Saturday night secured the Mountain West Conference's third bowl opportunity and effectively kept Toledo out of the running for the Silicon Valley Bowl. Fresno State of the WAC and Air Force of the Mountain West will meet in the Silicon Valley Bowl. Arizona State accepted the at-large berth to play UNLV in the Las Vegas Bowl.
"It's incredibly unfair," said Toledo Athletic Director Pete Liske. "The only game that is selected for competitive reasons is the BCS championship game. There isn't any other bowl game that is decided wholly by competitive merit. That's exceptionally hard for someone who loves football and loves college athletics to realize that's the way it's turned on."
The news was expected for the Toledo players, but nevertheless was hard to swallow.
"It hurts that all the good teams in the country get a chance to play in bowl game this year except us," said senior co-captain DeJuan Goulde. "But they can't take this year away from us. I had enough memories from this season to last a lifetime."
Said fellow co-captain Jim Harding, "If there is someone who can tell me how a 10-1 team doesn't make it to a bowl game and it isn't about money, I wish they'd tell me. If it is just about money, then why play the games? We lined up 11 times this year and 10 times we destroyed our opponent. They can't take that away from us. I've never been prouder to be a part of a team than this one."
Toledo (10-1) was co-champion of the West Division of the Mid-American Conference along with Western Michigan, but did not advance to the MAC Championship Game due to a loss to the Broncos on Sept. 23. Marshall defeated WMU in the MAC title game yesterday, and will advance to its fourth straight Motor City Bowl.
The Rockets, who defeated Penn State in Happy Valley and crushed Marshall at home, 42-0, cracked the top 25 in both the Associated Press and the USA Today/ESPN polls last week.
Toledo lost its head coach, Gary Pinkel, when he accepted the job at Missouri on Thursday. Pinkel took all but one of his assistants with him, but said he would allow any of them to return to Toledo to prepare the Rockets should they make a bowl.
