For a fleeting moment, there was consideration for hosting a college football bowl at Wrigley Field, an idea deemed too outlandish even for the seemingly silly festivities of Ditzy December, the amusing counterpart to March Madness in college football. Nonetheless, the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl is currently in its 14th year at Yankee Stadium […]
For a fleeting moment, there was consideration for hosting a college football bowl at Wrigley Field, an idea deemed too outlandish even for the seemingly silly festivities of Ditzy December, the amusing counterpart to March Madness in college football.
Nonetheless, the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl is currently in its 14th year at Yankee Stadium and the Wasabi Bowl at Fenway Park endures, suggesting that the Wrigley proposal may have been disregarded without due thought.
College football ventures into unusual territories, yet perhaps none is more bizarre than Fairbanks, Alaska, where a few years back there existed something known as The Ice Bowl, abandoned when the inappropriateness of its name became evident.
Here’s a nod to Boise, Idaho, where the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl has attracted teams for 27 years, even during times when it was neither famous nor closely associated with potatoes, instead being inextricably linked to Roady’s Truck Stops.
None of this relates to the topic of this column, which hopefully will navigate towards identifying the premier college team in the nation, a venture now commencing after a season of pretense. The stakes get real now, with victors and grumblers, including Indiana somewhere in the fray.
During the bleak month of January, nearly overwhelmed by the loudness of the NFL’s Super Bowl extravagance, college football will engage in a loose tangle, with one squad proclaiming itself superior to all others, but will they be happier than the victor of the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Perhaps for just a fleeting moment.
I confess I long for the charming eccentricity of the past when a Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl (somewhere in Texas) could still hold significance for someone.
Even the Art of Sport LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk carries an allure, while the Pop Tarts Bowl and the Cheez-It Bowl grasp for significance in Orlando. All in good fun.
One of my all-time favorites has to be the Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl, sponsored by a juice claiming “faster muscle recovery” and “increased stamina.” This, I believe, explains why Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are conspicuously absent from the Hall of Fame.
The progenitor of bizarre bowl titles likely is the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl, now transformed into Radiance Technologies, but the first to demonstrate that college football will tolerate anything for financial gain.
Now the ominous weight of seriousness (read: money) casts shadows and dims the cheer.
Whimsy ought to be embraced lest the entire college football spectacle crumble beneath the pressure of conference realignments, transfer periods, athlete endorsements, misguided alumni, blatant greed, and the most lamentable of all — brackets.
Yes, college football has become a bracket sport now, meaning it is ripe for wagering, complete with seeds and byes just like every other sport. Whereas it once was a guessing game presided over by honest journalists like myself, we tended to get it right more often than not.
It was a more joyful era, back when structure provided us with New Year’s Day festivities and sports writers’ votes helped clarify matters.
I’ll give my fraternity this credit. We rarely erred. A stray Brigham Young or Colorado might surface, but generally speaking, we recognized our Notre Dames from our Nebraskas.
And we did it without compensation.
Today, committees and algorithms, computers, and perhaps even A.I., validate the unmistakable.
While 42 bowl games remain and there are enough teams to fill them, only the chosen dozen truly count, with the field expanded from four to 12, which means that No. 13 will feel just as disheartened as No. 5 used to.
By January 20, one college football team will be crowned the best in the land, yet it won’t necessarily be the last one to win its final game.
Across locations from Albuquerque to Santa Clara to Nassau to Mobile, there will be a scattered array of unimportance, featuring 41 other victors, each delighted to have represented their school, conference, sport, foreign automobiles, auto parts, movers, hormone-free chickens, bland chicken sandwiches, department stores, gasoline, credit cards, and insurance companies.
As it ought to be. Oh, did I forget to announce a national title winner? Oregon.
