Links
Archives
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
|
THE GOLDEN BOWL
While the ongoing Bowl Championship Series controversy has brought out some bad writing in the nation's sports journalists ("The thievery has been done, the dreams have been diced. The University of California's outstanding season has been ransacked, ravaged and reduced, shrunken and shriveled like a raisin." "Do they even understand the lessons they really teach with their transparent greed and pompous twists of the truth?"), it has also inspired at least one scribe to writing that rises, in UD's opinion, from mere journalism to classic American ethnography: " OPEN SEASON ON BOWL GAMES By Steve Dilbeck Tuesday, December 14, 2004 Been doing those thumb exercises for the remote? Made the annual Costco run for the super-sized bags of Doritos and oversized bottles of caffeine-filled soda? Readied the overstuffed imitation-leather chair? Warned wife and children you are not to be disturbed over the next 29 days, excluding an unexpected act of God, and then only if of Biblical proportions? Then you were there Tuesday night, excited as Mike Tyson on a car hood that the bowl season finally got under way. Propped right in front of your overpriced big screen, watching North Texas and Southern Mississippi kick off the bowl season, happy as a pig in slop. It is the silliest bowl season ever, or at least since last year, but no matter. If you failed to get chills over North Texas-Southern Mississippi in the New Orleans Bowl, then you don't know consomme from gumbo. Incredibly, it was the Mean "Don't Call Me Joe" Green's fourth New Orleans Bowl. Can you believe it? They lost Patrick Cobb, the nation's leading rusher last season, to a knee injury in the second game of the season. Replaced him with unheralded freshman Jamario Thomas, who naturally led the country in rushing this year. Which school is Tailback U? Matched against a Southern Mississippi team so tough that even when it lost to Cal in the final game of the season, it somehow knocked the Bears out of the Rose Bowl. Who can't get excited about directional schools going at it in a bowl game on Dec. 14? What, you have embalming fluid for blood? It was the first of a mind-boggling 28 bowl games. That means every eligible school in the country but one, not counting self-banned South Carolina and Clemson, made it to a bowl game. Nothing for the Akron Zips. Not one lousy bowl watch. Not one chicken dinner. A team that never in its history has made it to a Division I-A bowl. But with the scene so action-packed with thrilling matchups, who has time for sympathy for the Zippos? Coming up next, the Champs Sports Bowl, where the players not only get to play in a bowl game in exciting Mobile, Ala., but receive a free jersey of the steroid-invested NFL player of choice. The Champs Bowl used to be the Tangerine Bowl, but these games change names faster than a con man on the lam. Alas, compassionate types are apparently in short supply these days, the Humanitarian Bowl this year morphing into the MPC Computers Bowl. The San Francisco Bowl had a shorter run than tech stocks, this year becoming the Emerald Bowl. Sponsorship changes make for great fun, too. Not sure which was the bigger surprise, learning that it was now the Vitalis Sun Bowl or that they still sold Vitalis. Coming soon, the Brylcreem Las Vegas Bowl, because you can never be too slick in Las Vegas. There are always games sponsored by someone whose product you can only guess at. It's the EV1.net Houston Bowl, which I guess means Elvira has her own cable channel now. It's the PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl and the MasterCard Alamo Bowl, which goes to show that football-crazed Texas can never have too many obscure bowl games. All-time holdover fave: The Chik-fil-A Peach Bowl game. Fried chicken and peaches -- can it get any better than this? And the matchups in these babies! It's 6-5 Alabama vs. 6-5 Minnesota in the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl. It's 6-5 Georgia Tech vs. 6-5 Syracuse in the Champs Sports Bowl. Not to mention 6-5 UCLA vs. 6-5 Wyoming in the Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl. Remember last year when you said the Silicon Valley Classic couldn't lower itself any further than 6-6 UCLA and Fresno State? Are you ready for Northern Illinois vs. Troy? What is that, USC's JV team? The only non-BCS bowls that are truly interesting as games are the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl with Cal and Texas Tech (get out the calculator) and the AutoZone Liberty Bowl with unbeaten Boise State and 11-1 Louisville (get out the main frame). The BCS is such an unmitigated disaster that even its bowl games leave you crying for an intriguing matchup. Poor, unbeaten Utah deserved a chance to prove itself worthy, but the Utes instead drew 8-3 Pitt in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Unbeaten and No. 3 Auburn deserved Cal, Utah or Texas, but the Tigers drew 10-2 Virginia Tech. The Rose Bowl deserved Cal-Michigan. The best is saved for last, so don't blow all the cashews by the Continental Tire Bowl. USC and Oklahoma, the top-ranked teams in the nation, will settle it on the field, which will be something of a new experience for the Trojans. The FedEx Orange Bowl will offer a fitting finale. Get out the eye drops, fluff up the Superman slippers and settle in for the long haul. Bowl season is under way, and it's a special time, no matter how silly the games. " |