SCOTT JACOBS

If you can believe it, we’re now half way to the end of bowl season.  Half way folks!

With 34 bowl games, 68 bowl teams, and other random warm and cold weather cities lining up each and every year your guess is as good as mine when it will end.  If my interview with the EagleBank Bowl back in the fall was any indication, bowl games aren’t so much about wins and losses as they are with tourism, charities, and rewarding teams with another game (because everyone likes an extra game).

The bowl field, once a prestigious one, is now such a long list that it takes time and dedication just to slug through it.  Bowl games, once strictly played at warm weather sites, like the first Rose Bowl game played in 1916 and always played on New Years Day are becoming few and far between.  There is no consistency with the bowl schedule.  It’s become a free for all, and thus every year the date of bowl games seem to– and do change.

But how did this happen?  When did the sacred bowl system become a mediocrity plate shoved down our throat?  How I ask, how!

In 1930 the Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game played.  With its success came other warm weather New Year’s day bowls like the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Sun Bowl. By 1940 there were five major bowl games.  In 1950 three more were added.  A decade later there will 11 bowl games on the docket.  In 1980, 19.  In 1990, the number was 25.  And from there bowl games sprouted up seemingly overnight.

Now we have 34 games, 68 teams, and most traditions have been shot dead.  Sponsors have deals with just about every bowl, and games are played from sea to shining sea and even… Canada.  There’s the International Bowl, the Humanitarian Bowl, the Texas Bowl, the PapaJohns.com bowl, heck now there’s a St. Petersburg bowl.

The dates have been rendered meaningless. 6-6 Kentucky plays East Carolina on January 2nd at 5pm.  Three hours later two top 10 teams play in the old tried and true Sugar Bowl.  On January 3rd the International Bowl in Toronto serves as a prelude to the Fiesta Bowl two days later.  On January 6th the all important GMAC Bowl gets its time in the spotlight, before they play the BCS National title game the two days later.

Really?

There are almost as many bowls that have been discontinued, 32 as are played.

Listen to some of these names: Cherry Bowl, Gotham Bowl, Galleryfurniture.com Bowl, and my favorite, the Oil Bowl.

And the beat goes on.

It seems like college football’s grandest time has become dictated by a globe.  Remember when Eddie Murphy in Coming to America spins a globe and it lands on New York.  Is that what bowl games do today?

Spin.
Hey what’d we land on?
Um, Tampa.
Okay, let’s give ‘em a game!
How about one more?
Yeah, couldn’t hurt.
What’d we land on this time?
Let’s see, Washington, D.C.
Cool!

Maybe next year it will land on Green Bay.  Then we can play the Frosted Flakes FrostBite Bowl.  I’m sure fans will flock to that one!

O joy.  O joy.

USC lost to unranked Oregon State 27-21 last night, effectively moving them out of the top two for the time being. You would have thought that after getting past their only test, Ohio State, (and some kind of test that was…), they would be on smooth sailing for a national title appearance.

But when has USC ever sailed through their cakewalk Pac 10 schedule smoothly?

Most years, you have to wait till the end of the season against UCLA for USC to screw up, so, with this early loss, the possibility is open for them to end the season with two losses.

No matter how it ends up, they probably won’t make the national title game. If Oregon losses and if the SEC champ has two losses, and if USC finishes the season with just one loss, yeah, it could happen, but they will probably have to settle for winning the Rose Bowl again.

Only this time, they will play the Big 10 champ, not the runner-up, and Ohio State might be wishing they were the runner-up.

Their combined win margins in the past two Rose Bowls have been 81-35. Their combined yardage margin was 1076-766. (633 of their yards came against Illinois.)

Well, Ohio State, it may only be USC, but I still feel sorry for you. (At least they’re not an SEC team.)

That said, Chris Wells will be back, and Terrelle Pryor has now moved into the position of starting quarterback. Pryor is 21/33 on the season with 4 TDs and 1 INT and 195 rushing yards. Against USC, he was 7/9 for 52 yards passing and gained 40 yards rushing on 11 carries. By the end of the season, his passing will be even better.

Ohio State can win the rematch. It will be a battle to be the best conference champion of a major conference that’s not very good.