[NU Sports] Bowl swappin ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> - It's always good to switch up the lower bowl sites (i.e.
> anything below

Perhaps - not wild on Jacksonville and Houston replacing San Antonio and Orlando from any standpoint (family vacation, destination city, prestige, etc.).

It really just goes to show how decimated the bowl system is with the B(C)S error in full effect - this is a system on life support right now trying desperate tricks that are the equivalent of stunt casting on a low-rated TV sitcom.

If they're smart, the bowl folk will see the writing on the wall and get into these early season "Chick-fil-A Classic" or the new game in Dallas as a football version of the preseason NIT. Those games sell more tickets and draw bigger ratings than a meaningless December bowl game.

> - San Antonio is a nice place, but the Gator Bowl is a nice
> addition - it's
> been around a while and Florida is never a bad place to

Jacksonville??? I'll take central Texas any time. This is a New Year's game ... true ... but the stadium's been half empty there more often than not recently. And I assume it will move away from Jan. 1 so it doesn't compete with the Big Ten games in Tampa/Orlando.

> Gator will keep 3 B10 bowls in Florida), and the Texas bowl
> would be an
> interesting addition; the Texas bowl would also keep a Big

Houston??? As my NU geography prof said in one of the all-time classic lines: "Houston is the 4th largest city in America, and the 400th most interesting city in America."

The stadium's gotta be a step up from San Antonio, but that's it. The game is NFL Network, right? So lower TV availability plus a city that really doesn't care about sports.

I'm not sure I like all of the shuffling -- one of the few things the bowls had left was that tradition. This removes that from some of the bowls left out by the B(C)S system.

The biggest example is the Holiday Bowl. This was one of the best pre-January bowls every year with great tradition and exciting matchups. Now pffft???

One one hand, I'm glad because this is another nail in the bowl system's coffin -- but sad to see some of the bowls that had managed to hang on to tradition like the Holiday or Gator ... or those who had built a decent tradition like the Alamo ... have to start over from scratch.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT