As Cardinal Fans across the Commonwealth prepare for tonight’s Music City Bowl, I feel it is only appropriate we celebrate all bowl eligible teams and their respective bowls. However, since there’s 90 zillion Bowl games, it would be rather taxing to try and list them all. So we can skip a few, such as The Midol Feminine Care Bowl featuring The Wisconsin Academy of Dental Hygiene taking on the Connecticut Institute of Technology and their Mighty Mice Herd. We can also forgo The Viagra Blue Steel Bowl, the Kaopectate Cleansing Bowl and the Charmin’s Enjoy the Go Bowl.
If the ridiculous names weren’t so obvious, you might believe that those were actual bowl games. The truth is they very well could be. Seriously,
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl? Yes, that’s real. Although I must add the everyday non-famous potatoes of Idaho are upset and ready to sue. The Rose Bowl is no joke but off the top of your head which of the following flowering bowls are bogus? The California Sunflower Bowl, The American Florist Carnation Bowl or The San Diego Poinsettia Bowl? The answer is they are all are fake. No, they all are real. No, that’s not right either. (Bet you had to Google to see for sure.)
I love college football, so I say bring on more bowl games. So what if 99% of them determine nothing but who is in 82nd-25th place. I can think of no NIT winner in college basketball who wouldn’t have rather played in the Big Dance than get the big chair at the kid’s table. What have they won really? The right to claim we’re 69th, we’re 69th! The same as the winners of college football’s The Black Flag Bowl brought to you by Raid in Cheyenne Wyoming, where neither participant has a winning record. But you know people will flock to their TV’s to watch. Or at least, they would if it was indeed a real bowl game, which it is not. (Bet you had to Google again) However, the names of these bowl games should, at least, have a little more creativity. The GoDaddy Bowl? You would think with the money they spend on advertising their Madison Avenue Execs could label their event with a bit more imagination than just the company name. Not unlike The Belk Bowl, The Foster Farms Bowl, The Russell Athletic Bowl, etc., those are just as boring as The Arizona Bowl, The Texas Bowl, The Hollywood Bowl, The St. Petersburg Bowl. (All real although one has nothing to do with football) I can see the meeting now, “C’mon guys. It’s Friday, 4:55, I want to get out of here. But boss, we haven’t come up with our bowl game name yet. Oh yeah, where is it again? New Mexico. Okay, how about, The New Mexico Bowl? Works for me, I am out of here.”
Then there’s the Hawaii Bowl, The Bocca Raton Bowl, The Potato Bowl, which all sound like side dishes in a theme restaurant, not a culmination contest between world class athletes after of a season of hard work. The Pinstripe Bowl? That’s something your Mom could never find when some company was coming. “Where is the pinstripe bowl! Can’t I have anything nice?!?” The Heart of Dallas Bowl is confusing because it is played in The Cotton Bowl which is a stadium and not a bowl game any longer. That would be The Cotton Bowl Classic brought to you by Goodyear, not Zaxby’s and is played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington not the actual Cotton Bowl in Dallas!?! Now that’s some laziness. You change the venue, but you don’t bother to change the name you just add “Classic” to the end of it.
I could go on, but I don’t want to. There’s college football on now like it’s going out of style where in just a week or two it will be no more, and I have some watching to do. I have my wings, my beverages and my remote. I have cleared enough space on the DVR, so I do not have to miss a minute. Just like Calgon baths do for those women in their commercials, “College Bowl games take me away!” Who care if I am watching The Fighting Porcelain Penguins of Artic Central State take on The Marvelous Mitochondria of Monmouth Technical Institute in The Lizard Kick Towing Reality TV Bowl on ESPN 13 and a quarter at 3:20 AM just after Amish Rake Fighting and before that best of non-Olympic tournament curling special. It’s football.
