Lets go bowling

To nobody's surprise, we are well into the college bowl season now. The length, the number of bowls and the stupidity of the sponsors are all getting worse every year. This year, the national championship game is not until the 10-Th of January. Pretty soon, we will be watching college football on Martin Luther King's day. There are 35 bowl games in all with bowls named after "uDrove", "R+L carriers" and "AdvoCare V100". It would be cool to get one of them bowl games named after myself next year. I am a huge sports fan, but have never really gotten into these bowl games since I don't see a point in a lot of them. I will watch them if I am at home and there are no other pro games to watch at that time. And some of these games are fun and nail-biting like any sporting event has the potential to be, but outside of the elite bowls, there is not much for me to get excited about. So clearly, you can see where I fall on the college football playoffs discussion. Absolutely bring on the playoffs and nuke some of these bowls. And playoffs will nuke some of these bowls. Thats exactly why the NCAA doesn't want it.

The bowl season is a good time for reflection on our lives as a sports fan since it also coincides with the end of the year when we are supposed to do resolutions and evaluate our life and all that nonsense anyways. I split the bowls into 3 parts. The first is the set of games prior to Christmas. These bowls starts earlier and earlier every year and I think it started on the 18-Th this year, but I am not sure. Ideally, it's good if you didn't know there are bowl games going on before christmas, but if you do, pretend like you didn't know. Of course, there will be a few good ones like Utah-V-Boise State, but for the most part, the pre-xmas bowls will feature match-ups like the 7-6 BYU versus the 6-7 UTEP. If you find yourself watching these games with rapt attention, please check yourself into GA - Gambleholics Anonymous! Honestly, gambling is the only reason to watch these games unless you are an alum, or in some cases, even if you are an alum. The march madness play-in game between the 64-Th and 65-Th seed is the only other sporting event that comes close to these bowl games in it's irrelevancy while also being marketed as an important sporting event.

The second phase of bowls are between Christmas and New Year. This is, for the most part used to be the meat of the bowl season leading up to the real big ones. I am not even sure anymore because of all the mish-mash of bowl games strewn across the calendar both before Xmas and after New Years. But if you are watching these bowl games closely, time to get a girlfriend! Something is slightly off in your life and lets go get a new life. It's the holiday season, schools and most of the workplaces have time-off and if all we are doing is watching these bowl games, life is not too bad, but aint great either. At the cost of sounding a little judgmental, I would recommend you shake things up a little. The third and final phase starts with Jan 1-St and this is where you have the big hitters like the grand-daddy Rose and the Orange and the Sugar. These are the games we should be watching and if you are not, then you are too busy. May be it's time to re-evaluate your priorities and re-connect with your inner sports fan. May be you are spending too much time at work or with "honey dues" and you should step back a little to enjoy some sugar (bowl). It will do you some good.

Of course, since they introduced the championship game a week later, they have dirtied up this third phase as well with a bunch of filler bowls leading all the way up to Jan 10-Th. For instance, Pittsburgh is playing Kentucky on Jan 8-Th. They are both better off playing basketball instead this time of the year, but thats neither here nor there. So when I say watch the post-new-year bowl games, I mean the real ones, not the "BBVA Compass Bowl". By the way, how perfectly named is that bowl! As I am writing my thoughts on how to use the bowl season as a compass to our lives, there is actually a bowl called compass bowl. In short, if you are watching the compass bowl start to finish, you need to change direction in your life. That pretty much sums up my 2 cents on the bowl season. As someone who has been on all sides of this bowl compass (except the gambling side), I thought I will share my opinions with you. But lets not forget to have fun with college football this holiday season. Lets go bowling, but hopefully not 35 times.