MAC Commissioner rips NCAA decision to grant Georgia Tech bowl waiver

The NCAA recently granted the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets' waiver request that will allow the school to play in a bowl game even if they finish the season under .500, and MAC Commissioner Dr. Jon Steinbrecher is upset that the NCAA won't follow the rules its board of directors passed last summer.

The NCAA had created a rule to specifically bar sub-.500 teams from going to bowl games over more successful squads from any conference, but the recent grant of GT's request means a team from a non-automatic qualifying conference will miss out on a bowl bid. Here is what the MAC Commissioner had to say about the ruling, via Hustle Belt:

"I am disappointed in the NCAA's decision to issue a waiver. I could not disagree more with the rationale provided. One of the reasons for the development of the policy covering this matter was to clearly create a selection order to manage just this situation.

"These selection orders were developed with NCAA staff input and approved unanimously by the NCAA Board of Directors last July. To suggest that that the NCAA staff or task force working on bowl policy did not contemplate such a circumstance, when this same situation occurred last year, is incorrect. The policy is clear and understandable.

"What is lacking is the willingness to enforce NCAA policy and that is regrettable. All the Mid-American Conference asks is that the rules that have been approved by the member institutions of the NCAA be enforced. That did not occur in this instance."

The list of MAC teams that will be bowl eligible is long, so it's easy to see why the conference commissioner would be up-in-arms about the NCAA's curious decision that cuts against the new rule it recently passed. Kent State (11-1), Bowling Green (8-4), Ohio (8-4), Northern Illinois (11-1), Ball State (9-3), Toledo (9-3) and Central Michigan (6-6) are all bowl-eligible and should have priority over GT under the original rule.