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.

SCOTT JACOBS

Would you look at that!  It’s December 20th and the bowl season starts today!  Now I hate to be a kill-joy, but bowl games just aren’t what they once were.  Let’s see, what are there, 119 major college football teams?  And what, 68 of those go to bowl games?  More teams make a bowl game nowadays, then miss the post-season party. At what point do you cut new bowls off?  40?  50?  Maybe we can get everyone a bowl game!  Because nothing says school spirit like celebrating Washington’s winless season!  That’s what people want to see right?

Let’s take this Saturday’s slate of games for example.

EagleBank Bowl

Nothing against Navy and Wake Forest, but I think watching someone try to pick a glued penny off the ground is more exciting than watching these two play.  There was a game late in the year when the Deacs played Boston College where I almost fell asleep because the game was so boring.  How low is Wake Forest on the totem pole?  Well, they were the last team left out of ACC bowl eligible teams, so the EagleBank Bowl had no choice but to take them.  And Navy was locked into this game after they won their sixth game.  Seriously, what kind of crap is that?  Navy won eight games this year. Eight!  Yet they’re playing in the first bowl game of the year in D.C.  Aren’t bowl games about getting a chance to go somewhere nice after a good year?  Well, the bowl arrangements are so tightly wound that Navy probably would have had to end up going undefeated to get into a different bowl.

St. Petersburg Bowl

And I guess I’m just bothered by the idea of having bowl games for the sake of bowl games.  Thanks to the new St. Petersburg Bowl (I don’t even choose to acknowledge their sponsor), the Memphis Tigers, who finished 6-6 in Conference U.S.A. get to go bowling.  I’m sorry but Memphis didn’t even finish with a winning record in it’s division!  They beat one team that is going to a bowl (Southern Miss).  But hey, this is the system that we have, so we might as well enjoy their number 22 ranking for total offense.  And we’d give them credit for that, but that leaves them fifth in their own conference.  Talk about a defenseless conference!  Lest us forget: SI.com has the Tigers ranked as the 80th best team in the country. 64 teams make bowls!  Yeesh.

USF gets to play the Tigers in their own stadium.  The Bulls must be thrilled about the way their season has gone.  After  starting out the season 5-0 the Bulls finished 2-5.  Ironically, their conference record in the Big East was also 2-5. The Bulls were the sixth best team in an eight team conference.  Again, I reiterate, where do you draw the line?  Hilariously, they’re big favorites to beat Memphis, so what does that say about the Tigers?

New Mexico Bowl

The Colorado State Rams are ranked 77th in SI.com’s power rankings.  They too went 6-6.  They too finished with a .500 conference record.  Give them credit though: they did beat Houston. And that’s about it.  Take a look for yourself at some of their bigger games, and you tell me if they belong in a post-season game (And let it be known, I don’t care if they went 3-9 last year, they still shouldn’t be in a bowl)!

@  Cal 42-7 L
vs. TCU 13-7 L (Not a bad loss though, we won’t hold that against them)
@ Utah 49-16 L
vs. BYU 45-42 L (Another close loss to a quality team)

So where am I going with this?  Well, I guess I’m simply asking if ‘close’ is good enough to get you an extra game.  That’s all. No harm in that right?

How about Fresno State?  Each year they come into the season with BCS expectations, and each year they end up disappointed. It’s kind of hard to defend a team’s bowl worthiness when they get obliterated 61-10 in their last game of the year.  Cause nothing says we’re worthy of a bowl like ending the season with a 51 point loss!  Once again, the Bulldogs played five teams that wound up in a bowl.  Okay, fair enough tough schedule.  They won one: their first game of the season against a then struggling Rutgers team.

Las Vegas Bowl

Okay, so maybe Arizona isn’t the greatest team in the land, or close for that matter, but they had a 5-4 record in the Pac 10, and they won seven games.  That should be good enough, right?  Wrong!  The Wildcats played four bowl teams, and beat just one (Cal).  Sure, they offered tough challenges for USC and Oregon State, but they also lost to New Mexico for Pete sakes.  Three of Zona’s wins came against Washington State, Washington, and Stanford, three teams that finished a combined 6-31.  But hey, don’t hate the team, hate the system that rewards the team for simply winning the games its supposed to win.

Once upon a time, in order to make a bowl game you truly had to have a good season, most of the time a great year.  You had to beat good teams, you had to win your conference, and you sure as heck didn’t get by with six or seven wins.  But times have changed, and the lower-tier bowls now get the big boys’ leftovers.

And lest us forget BYU.  BYU is one of the few teams in these early bowls that actually got shafted.  The Cougars went 10-2, including 6-2 in a tough MWC, and their reward is a middle tier Pac 10 team?  I know, I know, that’s the way these bowl affiliations are set up, but… wait a minute, looking at BYU’s schedule, who exactly did they beat?  O, I found one: Colorado State, by a field goal.  Actually, against the only two good teams they played (TCU and Utah) the Cougars lost by a combined 49 points.  So you know what?  I take it back.  They didn’t really accomplish much either.  But don’t tell the pollsters who have them ranked 16th that.  They might start yelling at you.

So there you have it.  I’m not bitter.  Just dumbfounded on how some of these teams earn their bowl berths.  I just went through all four Saturday games, looking for something, and I came up with nothing.  Just a few nice wins was all I wanted.  Instead I found mediocre conference records in mediocre conferences, and losses to teams like New Mexico.  Nothing personal, there never is, but these teams shouldn’t be playing in bowls.  There, I said it.  Now send me your hate mail.  I’m waiting for it.