Let me share a secret with you: As much as I enjoy watching college football, I hate the current bowl schedule. It's not the number of games or the number of teams involved... in fact, I figure a mediocre 6-6 team needs the extra bowl practices more than an a pretty-good 8-4 team does, so that's just fine.
No, it's because I'm a traditionalist when it comes to the actual days on which the games are played. When I was growing up, the regular season ended, then you had a (college) football drought until Christmas Day, which made you appreciate watching the crappy teams in the Aloha Bowl that much more. Then, from Christmas Day until New Year's Eve, you were presented with at least 2 games every evening for your enjoyment. And then, finally, on New Year's Day... your TV was filled to the brim with college football from 11:00 AM until whatever time you passed out from too much eggnog and other spirituous beverages.
It was a relatively short time frame (just a week or so) in which to fit all the games, but during that week... oh, how magnificent it was. This season, however, the bowls commenced barely 2 weeks after the regular season was completed, and they will continue until the Auburn Tiglesmen take the field against the Oregon Ducks on January 10. And during the week leading up to the BCS National Championship Game, we will be treated to prestigious games like the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, the naked Danica Patrick GoDaddy.com Bowl, and the Papajohns.com Bowl.
Really? January 10?? I mean, they couldn't find a way to schedule it on MLK Day, instead? And what's with scheduling crappy bowls with crappy teams after the Rose, Orange, and Sugar Bowls?
The season should end on January 1, just as it used to, and it should be no problem to fit all of the existing bowls into the 7-10 preceding days in a glorious week-long orgy of college football television. And that January 1 date should be reserved for the best bowls, with the best teams... period.
With all of that said, however, football is still football, and I'm still watching all of the bowl games , even though I still consider it an abomination. (I call it "passive non-resistance.") In a small gesture of defiance, though, I elected to wait to post my bowl-season edition of this feature until Christmas Eve. And I haven't missed anything really important, except for Boise almost getting beaten, which would have ruined our 2011 kickoff game, which is probably going to be ruined anyway... you know what? I'm really starting to get too "Munson" here. Why don't I just dive on in...
I'm letting the following people know that, for the 2010-2011 college football bowl season, you're on notice, dawg!
In no particular order:
1) Michael Adams - Why Michael Adams? Because he's a jerk, has stolen money from and is a disaster for University, and everybody that has ever worked with him hates him. Plus, I have it from a very authoritative source inside the UGA administration that he's been lobbying the NCAA very hard to ditch the bowl system in favor of a 128-team playoff.
Michael Adams, in his everyday "respect my authoritah" officewear, discusses how the Nachitoches bracket would have looked in the 2010 version of his college football playoff system.
2) The NCAA - Ok, so because Cam Newton is willfully ignorant and Ohio State does a crappy job of educating its student-athletes on the rules, they get a pass for the 2010 season? But since the University of Georgia does a thorough job of rules education, and our players "should have known better" (even though they obviously didn't), we get the hammer dropped on us immediately? Whatever, man.
There's a better solution available here, and yes, it involves the word "secession." As before, I'm looking to you to get the ball rolling, South Carolina.
3) The Arkansas Razorbacks - So help me, if you guys let Ohio State get their first ever bowl victory against an SEC team, you'd better get ready to squeal like a pig. And I don't mean squeal for a pig... I mean squeal like a pig**.
** - Please note that I'm not threatening to sexually assault anyone from or representing the state or university of Arkansas. All I'm saying is that, you know, maybe one of the many copies of Bobby Petrino's resume finds its way to an athletic department in Philadelphia, and maybe (just maybe) somebody "convinces" U of A to pull a head coach swap with Temple. (BOOM! You've been Addazio'ed.)
Ha ha! Squeal like a pig you hog... er, pig... er, hicks.
4) Puddles - You know who Puddles is. He's the completely insane delightfully quirky mascot for the University of Oregon that is just as insane delightfully quirky as Oregon's uniform choices. He's designed to look like Donald Duck, but not the cool, Duck Tales, syndicated Donald Duck. Puddles is the alcoholic, addicted-to-crack Donald Duck from the early Disney cartoons, who can be so cool and calm, then explode into a weird, almost violent mood for no reason at all.
See?
In spite of (or, more likely, because of) of this emotional handicap, Puddles excels at coming up with clever and "different" ways to make fun of the competition, including, but not limited to, hooking up with their cheerleaders.
He's also obviously one of those Oregon hippies, because he apparently couldn't even bother himself to put on some decent clothes for College Gameday. He just rolled out of bed and marched on over. (He's on the right.)
Also, he is now apparently so popular and busy that he yearns for the simpler days of life on a polyfil-stuffed pond.
Now, nobody can blame you, Puddles, if you're not exactly yearning to catch an Auburn cheerleader by the tail (get it?), considering the choices you have immediately at hand:
All I'm saying is that Auburn is rife with mocking potential. Whatever you come up with for the BCS National Championship Game, it'd better be good, and it'd better be funny. I want to hear 3 solid hours of callers the next day saying, "Pawwwwwwwwl, that duck should be shot and mounted on a waaaaawwwllll, Paawwwwwll."
(That's a reference to the Paul Finebaum show, for those of you who have never been introduced to the glorious center of stereotypical Alabamian behavior that is his daily radio show in Birmingham.)
5) The Air Force Falcons and The Army Black Knights - Personally, I think Navy kind of got screwed by the fact that officials insisted on emptying all of the water out of Qualcomm Stadium before they let the (long name) Poinsettia Bowl proceed. If they had let the stadium stay flooded, Navy would have totally dominated in a naumachia-style game against the Aztecs. (See? Because they're the Navy, and they would be playing against... aw, forget it. If you didn't get the joke, my explanation of a modern navy blasting a group of native americans back into the stone age isn't going to make it magically funny.)
For whatever reason, however, the Midshipmen lost their bowl game, so it's up to you, Falcons and Knights, to stand up for the pride of America's service academies.
As if we needed any additional reason to root for these teams other than the fact that we love America, it's worth remembering that one of these academies is playing a nest of insecure opportunists who would love nothing better than to usurp the position of the more popular and successful football teams in their state using the unscrupulous methods they've used in the past, and the other academy is playing SMU.
6) The Little Caesar's Pizza (Motor City) Bowl - This game has more words in the name than there will be people actually attending this game. The mighty Golden Panthers of Florida International travel north to lovely, picturesque Windsor Detroit to take on the Toledo Mud Hens Rockets, in a game that's certain to be viewed on TV by hundreds and hundreds of people.
What is this, the ACC Championship Game?
On the other hand, however, I will definitely be watching this game, because it's on the Sunday night after Christmas, and I will be tired of watching ignoring the NFL and will need something to help me go to sleep after getting all worked up earlier in the day. So, LCP(MC) Bowl, don't disappoint me!
7) The Athens-Clarke County Police Department - I understand, guys. I really do. The end of the year is coming up, and revenues are falling short. Everybody's a little on-edge, and you'd like nothing better than just to go out there and squeeze a few University football players just for the fun of it before they head out to Memphis in a couple of days. Do you think you can go just 2 more little days, though, without following every athlete-inhabited scooter and vehicle around town, just waiting for them to commit the tiniest infraction so you can trot them downtown to be charged and suspended for dubious, trumped up offenses?
Well, I thought not. Hey football players, just get the hell over to Memphis as soon as you can. And for the love of all things good and decent, don't start speeding until you get beyond the ACC border. And ACCPD?
Just kidding... love you! #PleaseDon'tArrestMeForEmergingFromAnAlley
8) The University of Central Florida Golden Knights - Ok, well, it's not as exciting as facing a team from a BCS conference, but the Georgia Bulldogs are still taking the field against a conference champion. And when you meet the Georgia Bulldogs, you're gonna feel the Bulldog Bite.
Merry Christmas, everyone, and...
