My Season of Bowling

It's kind of hard to believe that the college bowl season starts this Saturday. This fall just flew by! I know that the it thing in college football is to clamor for a Division 1-A Playoff, but we all know that is NEVER going to happen. I'm in the minority because I actually like the bowl games, and I like the Bowl Championship Series. Say what you will, but the BCS makes November an exciting month due to all of the controversies...plus, the BCS screwed Texas out a National Championship, which is always aces in my book.

Now, the bowl season is far from perfect but it does create some buzz because it allows some unique matchups that we may not have a chance to see otherwise, and 30+ teams have a chance to go out on top. Of course, I do have some problems with the bowls:

1. Lack of Creativity
We still have good old fashioned bowl games who have a sense of identity and creativity like the Cotton Bowl. You hear "Cotton Bowl" and you know the game's taking place in Texas. How about the Gator Bowl, that just screams Florida. Unfortunately the current trend is to take away all of the creativity from the bowls. Now, we have the New Orleans Bowl (guess where that one takes place), the Texas Bowl (Houston), the Las Vegas Bowl, the Hawai'i Bowl (Honolulu), the New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque), and the St. Petersburg Bowl (sure the Rays finally started winning, but do they deserve a bowl) to name a few. Where's the originality? It's just plain lazy.

2. Corporate Takeover
Corporations and naming rights have ruined sports from the top down. I hate it that major sports facilities have to be named after a company. It's just sickening. Of course the almighty dollar has always had an impact on college football, and now companies have their own bowl games like: the Capital One Bowl (formally the Tangerine/Florida Citrus Bowl), the Chik-fil-A Bowl (formally the Peach Bowl), the Emerald Bowl (formally the San Francisco Bowl), Meineke Car Care Bowl (formally the Queen City Bowl), and the Papajohns.com Bowl (the worst name ever). It's hard to take a football game seriously when it's named after a pizza company's website. Despite my hatred for corporation tie-ins, I do think it'd be funny if the Alamo Bowl was renamed to the Taco Cabana Bowl.

3. Too Many Bowls
Maybe the lack of naming creativity is because we have way too many bowl games. There are 34 bowl games, meaning 68 teams received bids...there are only 119 D-IA teams, which means over half of the teams go to a bowl. We have teams who don't even have a winning record (ahem...Notre Dame) going to games. It just reminds me of kiddie soccer where everyone gets a trophy just for showing up. Only the best teams and matchups should be showcased in a bowl game, not anyone who managed to go 6-6. Seriously, who wants to see Florida Atlantic vs. Central Michigan or Ohio State vs. Texas (I kid...sorta)?

Despite all of the flaws, I do love bowl season more than any other time of the sports year. I'm really excited to see Boise State vs. TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl, a classic Rose Bowl (Penn State vs. USC), and Florida & Oklahoma in the BCS National Championship game. Good times! Enjoy all of the football!