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The Bottom Ten/NCAA Bowl Game Edition
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
It's the most meaningless time of the year.
35 bowl games, none of them anything more than an exhibition. Like last year, the bowl lineup is so lousy three of them have already been played and there is still no shortage of lousy games to rank.
There are so many bowl games now that six bowl games feature a team that wasn't good enough to win more games than they lost, plus three more where neither team was good enough to post a winning record.
These bowls are the envy of the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, however, as organizers must not only put up with a 6-6 Illinois squad, but a UCLA juggernaut that was so good they finished with a losing record. Humanity's only chance is that some Occupy protesters will decide enough is enough and congregate at midfield, not allowing the game to be played.
And it's getting to the point where you cant tell the sponsors without a scorecard! From crappy companies you know nothing about, like Advocare and Belk, to familiar ones like Allstate and Idaho potatoes, which is bragged its bowlgame theirs is the oldest cold weather bowl game, which is sort of like syphilis claiming to be the oldest version of the clap.
This year's fiascoes:
1. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
Details: December 31, 2011, AT&T Park, San Francisco, California
Teams: Illinois (6-6) vs. UCLA (6-7)
Reasons To Watch: The worst bowl match-up ever, it provides a great excuse to get a head start on your New Year’s Eve drinking…If you drink enough, and squint enough, and tap the heels of your ruby red slippers together three times while invoking the name of Al DeRogatis, you might convince yourself you are watching the Rose Bowl.
Reasons Not To Watch: You have no desire to see two teams with a combined 12-13 record play a football game…A traditionalist, you still feel New Year’s Eve should be reserved for the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl.
Bottom Line: Both teams so thrilled with their bowl invitation they celebrated by firing their coaches….Hands down, the only bowl lousy enough to eclipse the BCS title game for the top spot...There used to be a rule prohibiting Big Ten and Pac-8/10/12 teams from playing in a bowl game other than the Rose Bowl...We could use that good sense now.
2. BCS National Championship Game
Details: January 9, 2012, the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Teams: Alabama (11-1) vs. LSU (12-0)
Reasons To Watch: There is no reason to enable further the greedy ding dongs that run major division college football in this country by watching this game…Greed continues to be the only reason against a playoff.
Reasons Not To Watch: There is no suspense...It’s a rematch, so we already know who the better team is because LSU beat Alabama in the regular season…Rematch not fair to anybody, from LSU to us fans.
Bottom Line: Bowl blowhards and mouthpieces like to prattle about how deeply meaningful and significant the regular season because each game is a playoff game, but if you are force feeding a rematch on us, this argument has no merit.
3. Belk Bowl
Details: December 27, Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, North Carolina
Teams: Louisville (7-5) vs. North Carolina State (7-5)
Reasons To Watch: You have no idea what a Belk is.
Reasons Not To Watch: You have no idea what a Belk is.
Bottom Line: The treasured Belk Bowl is one of four games on December 27 that feature zero (0) ranked teams.
4. Bell Helicopters Armed Forces Bowl
Details: December 30, Gerald J. Ford Stadium, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
Teams: BYU (9-3) vs. Tulsa (8-4)
Reasons To Watch: You bought a Bell Helicopter after the watching this game a couple of years ago and are curious about trading it in for a newer model.
Reasons Not To Watch: You come from a Sikorsky helicopter family.
Bottom Line: Conference USA teams have both the most wins (2) and the most losses (5) of any conference in the history of this game…Game returns to TCU’s stadium next year, after renovations are complete.
5. Rose Bowl
Details: January 2, 2012, The Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California
Teams: Wisconsin (11-2) vs. Oregon (11-2)
Reasons To Watch: We're unabashed Rose Bowl fans here at the Bottom Ten, and B-10 pollsters have long considered this only bowl game worth watching…After welcoming a fine TCU team last year, the usual visits by the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions is on tap.
Reasons Not To Watch: Really, there’s no reason not to...If you are reading this column you are either lost or have at least a passing interest in college football, and the Rose Bowl is an oasis of tradition in what is otherwise a cesspool of a postseason.
Bottom Line: Wisconsin is trying to become first team since Michigan in 2004-05 to lose the Rose Bowl to different conference champions in consecutive years...The only other team to turn this trick, more or less, is Stanford, which lost to Columbia in 1934, although Columbia was an independent then, and SEC champion Alabama the following year.
6.Gator Bowl
Details: January 2, 2012, EverBank Field, Jacksonville, Florida
Teams: Ohio State (6-6) vs. Florida (6-6)
Reasons To Watch: In a test to see if he can work himself to death on the field, soon-to-be Ohio State coach and former Florida coach Urban Myer will coach both teams simultaneously.
Reasons Not To Watch: It’s the only New Year’s Day, well January 2, bowl game featuring two unranked teams!
Bottom Line: This is the second time these two teams have met in a bowl game that doesn't mean much...The first time was in January, 2007 in the BCS title game.
7. Pinstripe Bowl
Details: December 30, Yankee Stadium, New York City, New York
Teams: Iowa State (6-6) vs. Rutgers (8-4)
Reasons To Watch: Easily the worst bowl game venue, 50-yard line seats are 120 feet away from the sidelines and most of the seats are behind a goal line...First ever meeting between traditional powers that are a combined 81 games under .500.
Reasons Not To Watch: The snow needs shoveling…Your wife is nagging you to put out...You have the opportunity to take a bullet through the head.
Bottom Line: Noted baseball team the New York Yankees trying to fill much-needed void by combining football match-up nobody cares about played in a baseball stadium in the freezing cold…Thanks, Yankees!
8. Meineke Car Care Bowl
Details: December 31, Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas
Teams: Northwestern (6-6) vs. Texas A&M (6-6)
Reasons To Watch: You're only allowed to watch one bowl game featuring teams that couldn't win more games than they lost on New Year's Eve and this is it...You want to see if Northwestern can lose its ninth straight bowl game since winning the 1948 Rose Bowl.
Reasons Not To Watch: You're only allowed to watch one bowl game featuring teams that couldn't win more games than they lost on New Year's Eve, and you're already watching the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.
Bottom Line: This game isn't going to be any good, either as the Aggies have lost four of their last five, and the Wildcats lost five straight earlier in the season.
9. BBVA Compass Bowl
Details: January 7, 2012, Legion Field, Birmingham, Alabama
Teams: SMU (7-5) vs. Pitt (6-6)
Reasons To Watch: You don't know what/who BBVA Compass is, either
Reasons Not To Watch: You don't particularly care what/who BBVA Compass is, either...Game played after New Year's Day/Monday January 2, when you don't care about college football anymore.
Bottom Line: Finally, the long-awaited rematch of the 1983 Cotton Bowl.
10. Amos Alonzo-Stagg Bowl
Details: The NCAA Division III National Championship Game; December 16, Salem Football Stadium, Salem, Virginia
Teams: Wisconsin-Whitewater defeated Mount Union 13-10
Reasons To Watch: It's a genuine, real college football national championship game, culminating a man-sized 32-team playoff.
Reasons Not To Watch: It's already been played, silly.
Bottom Line: A bastion of stability in this senseless world, UW-Whitewater and Mount Union met for the seventh straight time...After splitting the first six meetings, UW-Whitewater won their third straight D-III national championship.
Write This Down: Just 253 days left till the 2012 NCAA Bottom Ten kicks off! Will the Sun Belt Conference return to dominance? Can UNLV repeat? Will Lock Haven retain the Continental Cup - issued to the team with the longest all-division losing streak in NAFTA sphere of influence? See you on August 27, 2012!
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
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