Bowled over
There are 32 bowl games this holiday season, meaning more than half of the Football Bowl Subdivision's 119 members "earned" bids.
The glut of mediocre matchups is comical, yet, beginning with Thursday's San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl - pitting Utah against Navy - I know I'll be unable to look away.
Table the cries for a playoff. I would love one as much as most fans, players and coaches.
The current bowl system, including the baffling BCS, is apparently and sadly here to stay, however. So I say, the more, the merrier.
Bring on Purdue (3-5 in the Big Ten) versus Central Michigan (1-4 outside the MAC) in the Motor City Bowl. Their Sept. 15 pillow fight clearly merits a nationally televised rematch in HD.
Give me TCU and Houston in the Texas Bowl. I'll find a reason to pull for either the Horned Frogs or Cougars, no matter how arbitrary.
Sure, we won't really know who the nation's best team is, but bitter rivals Memphis and Florida Atlantic duke it out in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl on Friday, finally settling the timeless debate: Who would win a brawl between a streak of Tigers and a parliament of Owls?
I won't be satisfied until one of the fine folks at R+L Carriers stares warmly into his cue cards, thanking all 173 of us helpless college football junkies for tuning in.
The bloated bowl lineup is laughable, but leaves few victims in its wake.
Our neighbors to the north will eventually forgive us for exporting Rutgers and Ball State for the International Bowl in Toronto.
I was fortunate enough to play in two bowl games at Stanford. And while the buildup to the 2001 Seattle Bowl against Georgia Tech didn't come close to that of the 2000 Rose Bowl against Wisconsin, each experience was unforgettable.
Neither "the granddaddy of them all" or "the redheaded stepchild of them all" turned out well for us on the field.
Details, details.
I gained 20 pounds in the weeks leading to the Rose Bowl, feasting on six to seven square meals a day at various Los Angeles area hotels, restaurants and amusement parks.
I'm pretty sure it was all muscle.
I even enjoyed a personal triumph prior to the Seattle Bowl, inhaling two racks of ribs in less than eight minutes to pull away from the Ramblin' Wreck's most reckless carnivores.
My trophies? A homemade T-shirt and - you guessed it - a to-go order of ribs.
As long as we're forced to accept the travesty that is the BCS, we might as well embrace its innocent offspring.
The Insight Bowl might not draw high ratings - especially since it's being aired on the elusive NFL Network - but try telling Indiana that its tilt with Oklahoma State is of little consequence.
The Hoosiers will be playing in memory of Terry Hoeppner - their inspirational head coach who passed away in June after laying the foundation for Indiana's first bowl berth since 1993.
The long, lucrative laundry list of bowls allows college football's also-rans to reset their goals when entering November with so-so records.
In an era where 6-6 translates into a bowl bid, few regular season games are played that don't have implications.
So, while college football's other levels crown their champions the right way, the FBS leaves us with 32 episodes of variable entertainment and minimal logic, thanks to a bevy of obscure sponsors.
And since none of us fans created the flawed system, we shouldn't feel guilty for ducking out of work early to catch the second half of Nevada versus New Mexico in the - wait for it - New Mexico Bowl.
Happy holidays, and I hope to see you all in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday when the Papajohns.com Bowl delivers Southern Miss and Cincinnati.
Better ingredients, better bowl games.
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Greg Schindler is a sports reporter for the Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached by e-mail at gschindler@dailyinterlake.com or by calling 758-4463.