It's a new and theoretically improved era in the bowl selection process, where bowls get a pool of eligible teams and can talk among themselves about which matchups best suit their games. The added flexibility is great, but the lack of an orderly draft-style you-go-then-they-go-then-we-go selection process begs for controversy.
We got a bit of that this year with the Belk Bowl's selection of NC State over Pittsburgh. (And Virginia Tech.) Let's be clear about one thing: the Belk Bowl wanted Frank Beamer's farewell game, as the Daily Press' David Teel explains here. Virginia Tech fans in particular are not pleased about how things worked out.