Well guys, here we are. The title game is at hand and the long college football season is about to be a wrap. I love college football and will miss it. But, I assure you from past experience the next season will be here sooner than you'd expect. The seasons all seem to come around a little faster with each passing year. Looking forward already to next season when the Missouri Tigers will be crowned the national champions. Yes, I am obviously kidding. A little levity is needed around here at times. Here are some personal thoughts from yours truly as we conclude the 40 bowl games. Good grief. There REALLY did used to be a time when you had the Rose, Cotton, Orange and Sugar bowls. It was a really special thing. Well, that ships sailed.
I was pleasantly surprised at the performances of the Big 12 and the ACC. Some considered those two to be the softest of the power 5 conferences. I thought they fared well. No, I don't think the bowls are always that much of a true measuring stick as motivation ranges drastically from team to team. But it is something.
Enough is enough. There are too many bowls. Yes, I love football and betting football and everything from the cheerleaders to the games. But there are too many bowl games. I just think that is the sane point of view. Average attendance this season fell once again, this time by about 5%. Hell guys, we saw many of these games and the empty seats. I think the Miami Beach Bowl, (Good Grief) pulled in around 15,000 fans. Might seem drastic but I think cutting the thing in half is about right.
I sat in my local sports bar one night talking bowls with the bartender and some of the regulars. These are just what you'd call working Joes. The foundation of sports fans. They were actually laughing at the volume of bowls and most specifically the quality of teams getting invitations. Not trying to pick on anybody, remember, I am a Missouri guy, I have nothing to crow about, but North Texas 5-8, South Carolina 6-7, well hell, actually several teams under the .500 mark. That is simply wrong. The stubborn fact is for the time being the bowl games are actually capped at 40 games. That is due to an NCAA mandated freeze until 2019. After that time the bowl exec's, conference leaders and athletic directors will get their heads together to see what they think is the best way to proceed. I can only pray they don't rubber stamp approval to expand. I hope somewhere out there a voice of reason will exist.
Okay, how about some specific teams here. I thought San Diego State might have been the most underrated team in the country. They won 11 games topped off by an ass kicking of Houston 34-10 in the Las Vegas Bowl. I hope Pumphrey gets his chance to carry the rock on sundays. I remember another Aztec back who took advantage of his shot, Marshall Faulk. On the flip side I love the Iowa Hawkeyes, my sister attended school in Iowa City and it is a great town. But the Hawkeyes likely were the most overrated club. That blowout loss to the Gators was just almost impossible to watch. I take that back. I found it impossible to watch.
The poor MAC. They concluded the bowl season a pathetic 0-6 in the bowls. Ouch. I thought the kids from Western Michigan competed valiantly against Wisconsin in their shot at glory. But lets just be honest here, anyone watching that game knew the Badgers were perfectly capable of blowing them off the field had they been inclined. I love rooting for the underdogs as a rule but there was a stark difference in talent level that game. Just saying. No disrespect to Western Michigan. Great season but this wasn't Rocky the movie. It was real life. And the Badgers were not interested in helping make history for the little guys.
I cannot let this post go by without giving out props to USC and Sam Darnold. The Trojans started out the season with some self abuse by scheduling Bama and getting murdered. But they bounced back strongly. Darnold tossed five touchdowns in that amazing Rose bowl game against Penn State. Quite possibly the single most entertaining bowl of the entire slate.
My own most personally gratifying bowl? Probably the Potato Bowl. God it's hard to type that and keep a straight face. But I had Idaho +15.5 against Colorado State and they won the thing outright. The Rams did not even engage until it was simply too late. It is always nice when a game plays out exactly like you envision.
Anyway, here we are. I made a decision at the very outset of this bowl season that I was not going to play all the games. I was simply going to pass on a little over half of them. Frankly I had had it with trying to appease action junkies. That ships sailed. I decided to only release the games I really felt very strongly about. I also decided to be very meticulous in my use of the Triples. Well going into tonight the Bowl record is 14-3, 82% winners. I have also only had one Bowl Triple going into tonights game. That was my one & only Bowl game of the year with Clemson. It was my opinion they would whip an overrated Ohio State team. They surely did that shutting them out completely. So all this leads into tonight. I do love this game. Yes, I have tagged it a Triple. Only my second one. And NO, it is not a lock. That is a term coined by idiots for idiots. Anyone who used that term with a straight face should immediately turn in their man card and be stricken from this site for 10 years minimum. Yes, I have a strong distaste for that ignorant term.
Okay, that is it for now. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the game tonight. I hope you are on the right side. It's not really that tough tonight. Take care guys.