Next week in Weston, Fla., organizers for three potential new bowl games will make their presentations to the NCAA's Bowl Certification Committee. They are: The Congressional Bowl in Washington D.C (Navy vs. ACC); The St. Petersburg Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Big East vs. Conference USA); and the Rocky Mountain Bowl in Salt Lake City (Mountain West vs. WAC).

No, this is not a joke.

If all existing bowls earn recertification, as is expected, and if all three new contests get approved, it would raise the total number of bowl games to 35 -- up from 22 less than a decade ago.

At this point, you may be asking yourself: "Aren't they going to run out of teams?" Many in the bowl business are wondering the same thing.

"There's a lot of concern in our association about adding even one more game," said Scott Ramsey, executive director of the Music City Bowl and chairman of the Football Bowl Association. "One of the worst things that could happen down the road is for the organizers of a game to spend all year preparing for it and then not have enough teams to play. It would give the bowl system a collective black eye."

Just how low on the totem pole are these games willing to go? The Congressional Bowl's agreement with the ACC would send the league's ninth eligible team to D.C -- but the conference has yet to produce more than eight since expanding in 2004. (The bowl's backup partner is the MAC.) And a potential partnership with the St. Pete Bowl would give the eight-team Big East seven guaranteed slots in 2008 (though Notre Dame can take one of them).