[NU Sports] Ranking the Bowls

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

But that's the problem with bowl games lately -- they're not your typical college football game. The stadium's mostly empty, there are so many ads that the games take longer than a Notre Dame game on NBC and after a month off, the teams often come out sloppy and the games are rarely close. NU games aside, and B(C)S games especially, the B(C)S era has sucked meaning, life and excitement out of these bowl games. Even the once-reliable Holiday Bowl has disappointed in recent years.

I remember Bowl Day 2000, when the one-score Rose Bowl was the yawner of a day that included the Michigan/Alabama Orange Bowl classic and MSU/Florida Citrus thriller (not to mention a bizarre Purdue/Georgia Outback Bowl with a huge blown lead) ... I can't recall a bowl day with that type of excitement since (Boise/Oklahoma and Texas/USC are one-game exceptions) or a single game from last year that was as nailbiting and exciting as the Saints/F***ons Monday Night thriller that same week. Sorry, the Quiznos DC Heritage Bowl between some 6-6 ACC team and a 7-5 CUSA team just doesn't make for TiVo-worthy viewing.

Here's last year's bowl results -- remember any of these? http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/BCS-Bowl-Games-Schedule-2010-2011 I watched the Rose Bowl, of course, but it wasn't what I would call a classic game. The OSU/Arkansas game sounded interesting, but I didn't get home from work in time to see it because they moved the Sugar Bowl from Jan. 1. I did get to see some of the title game and it was a sloppy flagfest.

And how dare you besmirch hockey!!! Them's fighting words!!! :) But it only makes my point with the decay of Bowl Day and the glut of bowl season games -- do you think the Winter Classic would have even been attempted during the good ole' days? Now, hockey has become a viable alternative and a welcome escape from a UConn-Oklahoma/Stanford-VaTech yawners. I'm with you on the NBA, but they now own Christmas Day the way college football used to own New Year's Day.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT
 
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STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
Super Bowl XLIV Champions!
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________________________________
 From: Mike Nolan <nolan at tssi.com>
To: sjtruog at yahoo.com 
Cc: "neonrye at aol.com" <neonrye at aol.com>; "nwu-sports at tssi.com" <nwu-sports at tssi.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 10:52 PM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Ranking the Bowls
 
> But honestly, looking at the list, there are not too many I'm going to go out
> of my way to see. 

Nope, disagree.  Nearly ANY college football game is better than nearly ANY
NFL game, and ANY college football game is better than no games at all.
Bowl season is the last chance to watch the best, exciting and most unpredictable 
sporting events until next fall.  (Heck, even the NC game might feature
a touchdown this time.)  

For a while I had the NBA labor follies to look forward to over the winter,
but apparently even billionaires can make a necessary business decision every
now and then, just like a blind squirrel can find a nut.  I'd rather watch a 
rerun of the 1996 Strong Man competition on ESPN (for the 37th time) than 
have to watch an NBA game.  (The Jordan years were the exception, he was such
a phenomenal athlete that you just KNEW he would do something that was impossible
for mere mortals at some point in the game.)

And as for the NHL, Rodney Dangerfield had them pegged years ago.
--
Mike Nolan