Friday, December 23, 2011

Bowl Season???

It is hard for me to believe that for the first time that I can remember, college football bowl season has so far held no interest for me. Looking back I have fond memories of the Gator, Peach, Sugar, Cotton, Rose and Rose Bowls. My family annually would go to the Gator Bowl and watch two teams that had somewhat respectable seasons play for pride and the love of the game. Today I am sure that there is a game being played, for there are only 83X10 to the nTh bowl games this year. But for the love of me I couldn't tell you who it is. Equally I am sure that there have already been that many bowl games already played this year for which I can name no match up. I am not going into reasons, politics, or solutions for the ridiculousness of the bowl situation that we have now. I do want to talk about just one game that was played last night. Arizona State and Boise State played in the whatever it was bowl. And that could have been the name, I just don't know. This game matched a senior laden Boise team that was 12-1 and ranked 7th in the nation against a talent laden ASU team that had a season record of 6-6. Boise had all of the intangibles in its favor, ASU none! And it showed. Boise wanting to send its QB out as the winningest QB in college history, true team spirit, and high regard for the school and coach played with class and style while a uninspirited ASU team came out and barely went through the motions of playing. But who could really blame them! They were playing for a coach who had been fired, they had fallen short of their expectations for the season,and its Christmas! With really no incentive after a disappointing year who could blame them for not being at their best. Most of them are young men who are not going to make a career of football so why should anyone expect any differ ant. Even the most highly regarded ASU player who is going to be a first round NFL pick played like a Division III player!

All of this brings me to my point. Somehow a motivated 12-1 team got matched against an I don't want to be here 6-6 team in the I don't know bowl on the Thursday night before Christmas for what reason???? I think we all know and it very saddening to me that its has gotten to this point.