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The Southwestern Athletic Conference made a surprise announcement Tuesday morning that it was dropping its football conference championship game after the 2017 season.

"With the creation of the Celebration Bowl as a national showcase for HBCU football, the Council of Presidents and Chancellors decided to suspend the championship game format after the 2017 season," said commissioner Duer Sharp in a news release. "By focusing on the Celebration Bowl, we can continue to grow (the game) as an HBCU classic for the teams and fans of both conferences, and for HBCU football nationally."

Under the current format, the winner of the SWAC championship game represented the conference in the Celebration Bowl, which is used to determine a Black College Football National Champion. Grambling won the Celebration Bowl last season after defeating Alcorn State in the SWAC championship game.

Beginning in 2018, the SWAC representative will be determined by the team with the best regular season record.

The 2017 season also marks the first year of a new SWAC scheduling format. Previously, each of the 10 teams in the league played each other in the regular season, allowing for definite head-to-head tiebreakers.

Under the new schedule, SWAC teams will play seven conference games instead of nine, meaning its possible the SWAC champion could not be decided by head-to-head records in the event of a tie.

Too bad, it was such a huge event.

The Celebration Bowl is also astoundingly well attended. Here are four screen shots I took as the video of it rotated around the stadium at opening kickoff:

Some people
https://youtu.be/n5VwtVn6KW0

2018 SWAC champ game had 20,652 in attendance
btw JohnStOnge could you post some pictures from some McNeese State home playoff games?

I could see dropping the "play everybody" format OR dropping the championship game, but not both. I'd like to have an obvious H2H tiebreaker. The idea of they beat so-and-so but lost to someone else tends to get pretty dicey....

GAD_SU wrote:2018 SWAC champ game had 20,652 in attendance
btw JohnStOnge could you post some pictures from some McNeese State home playoff games?

McNeese has had attendance issues recently. Unfortunately they also haven't had a lot of playoff games recently.

But I wasn't talking about SWAC championship game attendance. I was talking about Celebration Bowl attendance. If you watched the three Celebration Bowls so far it's pretty obvious that the actual butts in the seats attendance hasn't been nearly what's implied by the reported attendance.

For instance look at the series of pictures I posted above. The reported attendance for that game is 31.096. The Georgia Dome football game seating capacity is 71,000. So 31,096 would mean that 1 of each 2.3 seats is filled. More than 1 of 3. Look at those pictures. Does that look like 1 in each 2 or 3 seats were filled? Does it look like anywhere even CLOSE to 1 in every 2 or 3 seats were filled?

The Celebration Bowl is an abomination. The MEAC allowed to SWAC to drag it down.

BTW when did the SWAC decide to not drop its championship game after the 2017 season?

All this started well after the '00 season!!!!!!

JohnStOnge wrote:

GAD_SU wrote:2018 SWAC champ game had 20,652 in attendance
btw JohnStOnge could you post some pictures from some McNeese State home playoff games?

McNeese has had attendance issues recently. Unfortunately they also haven't had a lot of playoff games recently.

But I wasn't talking about SWAC championship game attendance. I was talking about Celebration Bowl attendance. If you watched the three Celebration Bowls so far it's pretty obvious that the actual butts in the seats attendance hasn't been nearly what's implied by the reported attendance.

For instance look at the series of pictures I posted above. The reported attendance for that game is 31.096. The Georgia Dome football game seating capacity is 71,000. So 31,096 would mean that 1 of each 2.3 seats is filled. Less than 1 of 3. Look at those pictures. Does that look like 1 in each 2 or 3 seats were filled? Does it look like anywhere even CLOSE to 1 in every 2 or 3 seats were filled?

The Celebration Bowl is an abomination. The MEAC allowed to SWAC to drag it down.

Yes the MEAC should have said no.

JohnStOnge wrote:

GAD_SU wrote:2018 SWAC champ game had 20,652 in attendance
btw JohnStOnge could you post some pictures from some McNeese State home playoff games?

McNeese has had attendance issues recently. Unfortunately they also haven't had a lot of playoff games recently.

But I wasn't talking about SWAC championship game attendance. I was talking about Celebration Bowl attendance. If you watched the three Celebration Bowls so far it's pretty obvious that the actual butts in the seats attendance hasn't been nearly what's implied by the reported attendance.

For instance look at the series of pictures I posted above. The reported attendance for that game is 31.096. The Georgia Dome football game seating capacity is 71,000. So 31,096 would mean that 1 of each 2.3 seats is filled. More than 1 of 3. Look at those pictures. Does that look like 1 in each 2 or 3 seats were filled? Does it look like anywhere even CLOSE to 1 in every 2 or 3 seats were filled?

The Celebration Bowl is an abomination. The MEAC allowed to SWAC to drag it down.

I never said anything about the Celebration Bowl
Can we get some crowd pictures of McNeese States home playoff games? Eastern Washington or Jacksonville State

dal4018 wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:
McNeese has had attendance issues recently. Unfortunately they also haven't had a lot of playoff games recently.

But I wasn't talking about SWAC championship game attendance. I was talking about Celebration Bowl attendance. If you watched the three Celebration Bowls so far it's pretty obvious that the actual butts in the seats attendance hasn't been nearly what's implied by the reported attendance.

For instance look at the series of pictures I posted above. The reported attendance for that game is 31.096. The Georgia Dome football game seating capacity is 71,000. So 31,096 would mean that 1 of each 2.3 seats is filled. Less than 1 of 3. Look at those pictures. Does that look like 1 in each 2 or 3 seats were filled? Does it look like anywhere even CLOSE to 1 in every 2 or 3 seats were filled?

The Celebration Bowl is an abomination. The MEAC allowed to SWAC to drag it down.

Yes the MEAC should have said no.

Why should the MEAC have said no? What are your pros and cons for the playoffs vs the bowl game?

GAD_SU wrote:

dal4018 wrote:Yes the MEAC should have said no.

Why should the MEAC have said no? What are your pros and cons for the playoffs vs the bowl game?

The playoffs I want to see how these schools compete against non HBCU schools.

dal4018 wrote:

GAD_SU wrote: Why should the MEAC have said no? What are your pros and cons for the playoffs vs the bowl game?

The playoffs I want to see how these schools compete against non HBCU schools.

Teams from both conferences should have the option to forgo a conference championship game, and/or celebration bowl, if they are selected for the FCS playoffs. If a MEAC/SWAC team receives and accepts an FCS playoff bid, the next best team from said conference is then selected for the game/Bowl game. If a team declines their potential (at-large only) bid in the FCS playoffs, the next best, non-HBCU, FCS team should receive the at-large bid as chosen by the committee like normal.

The con for MEAC or SWAC participating in the playoffs is a guaranteed loss.