Bowl Season - what will you watch?

With 30-something bowls coming up, which games other than the local schools will draw your attention? Perhaps the train wreck that is Notre Dame? I think not on Christmas Eve. Is Boise State for real? Will LSU (defending champ?!) continue to lose? Will Alabama have any interest in playing Utah? Will tOSU continue their trend of getting blown out in BCS bowls? Will any fans follow Mizzou and Northwestern to the Alamo Bowl? Will BC or Vanderbilt win the Brain Bowl?

Me, I'll watch too many of them. But I think the Poinsettia, Chick-fil-A, Rose, and Cotton, as well as the Sun and Holiday will be on my list.

Sun and Holiday are obvious ones - I actually think the Holiday is one of the more intrguing matchups of the whole bowl season. Of the BCS games, I'm really only interested in the Rose and title game. Couldn't care less about tOSU. Perhaps I'll watch the first five minutes to see them get down by 28, but I might just wait to read about it the next day.

Yea, the Hawaii Bowl being on Christmas Eve, at 5 pacific no less, is not good timing. The only interest there is to see if they can actually win a bbowl game. If they don't........wow, there will be some very upset people around this neck of the woods.

The other two that I may make an effort to see are the poinsettia and chick-fil-a bowls. The Poinsettia gets two top 11 teams, while the chick-fil-a gets Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech trying to ramble over the bayou begals, who have looked quite unimpressive this season.

My DVR is set to record on December 28th at 7:15 local time. There is no way I am going to miss the Independence Bowl matching up Northern Illinois and Louisiana Tech. If I watch only one bowl game this year, it will be that one.

I really think Northern Illinois looks good in that one. Go Huskies!

But I don't know... the magicJack St. Petersberg Bowl sounds pretty good... Memphis v South Florida.

Can anyone tell me what or who magicJack is?

Stonehouse wrote:
Can anyone tell me what or who magicJack is?

It has nothing to do with a Giant or a beanstalk.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagicJack

I personally am going to watch my dog's bowl... crying and hoping for brighter days to come

This should cheer you up

Pac-10 is 5-0 on college bowl games. When, when will the rest of the country realize that we can be very competitive. You don't need a cornfield next to your house or reside in Texas to be good.

Are you kidding me that the Orange Bowl is not on TV? ESPN is airing poker instead of the Orange Bowl? WTF?!?!

I am already bitter about how the bowl games have been spread out over the first half of January....

Orange Bowl is on Fox!

But I agree about the spreading out of the games. They should be finished today! Otherwise I'll never accomplish anything.

Oh, there it is.... I thought I was going crazy.... I didnt see it on the listings, but who ever looks at Fox for games?

All the bowl games should be finished today.... but I could probably be convinced to have the NC game the day after New Year's... but no other games!

The Cotton, Sugar, Fiesta and BCS are all on Fox this year! Still a few good games. I have Friday off work, so can watch. But both the Fiesta and BCS kick off at 5:00 pm PST on a work day. Hard to get home in time for that. Seems dumb to me.

Stretching out the bowls for a week after January 1st just doesn't feel right to me. Neither does a network that covers exactly zero college games in the regular season broadcasting the biggest bowl games (I'm talking about the big Fox, not the regional FSNs).

With its compelling Cincinnati-Virginia Tech matchup, the Orange Bowl is not doing it for me this year.

I will add that the whole naming rights thing is getting way out of hand.... now its the "Company X" Gator Bowl Presented by "Company Y" and the "Company Z" Halftime Show, "Company W" First & 10 line.... Come on; enough is enough...

I agree that commercialization in the name of things has gone awry. Its fine with me to have sponsors that is the American way. But they should be limited to commercials and signs in the backround. Having a Koolaid Kick of the game is stupid and detracks from the game.

Where is the NCAA in all of this. Right in someones pocket. Its a disgrace.

PilotNut wrote:I will add that the whole naming rights thing is getting way out of hand.... now its the "Company X" Gator Bowl Presented by "Company Y" and the "Company Z" Halftime Show, "Company W" First & 10 line.... Come on; enough is enough...

Even better is when the name of the bowl is now the sponsor itself. No more Citrus Bowl--it's the Capitol One Bowl. Likewise the Peach Bowl is now the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

Of course, the NCAA does not have companies that sponsor them. A few "Corporate Champions," sure...

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:Stretching out the bowls for a week after January 1st just doesn't feel right to me. Neither does a network that covers exactly zero college games in the regular season broadcasting the biggest bowl games (I'm talking about the big Fox, not the regional FSNs).

With its compelling Cincinnati-Virginia Tech matchup, the Orange Bowl is not doing it for me this year.

Yeah, that's not such a compelling matchup at all. As much as I'd like to see things end around January 1st, I'm more interested in a tourney...which will probably never ever happen due to the politics of college football. College football would be a lot more fun with a few good cinderella stories instead of tiresome arguments about who should be playing who in the BCS. Seeing Boise State go on a nice mid-major run in a tourney would be interesting...

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:
Even better is when the name of the bowl is now the sponsor itself. No more Citrus Bowl--it's the Capitol One Bowl. Likewise the Peach Bowl is now the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

So next year the Cotton Bowl won't even be played in the Cotton Bowl stadium. What will it be called then?

up7587 wrote: But both the Fiesta and BCS kick off at 5:00 pm PST on a work day. Hard to get home in time for that. Seems dumb to me.

After living on the West Coast most of my life and now in the Central Time Zone for three years I will tell you this. Be thankful that the games start at 5pm local time. I would much rather miss the start of the game than fall asleep at halftime (granted I rarely got home after five and had to be up by 3:45am). Besides, that is what DVR is for. I love to record a game, start watching an hour later, skip all the commercials, and still finish the game at the same time as everyone else who wasted the first hour of the game so that they could see the commercials.

Unfortunately this bowl season I do not have my DirecTV installed, all I can pick up on my rabbit ears is CBS, sometimes without sound. Needless to say, I have been giving Buffalo Wild Wings a lot of business this past week. But I did get to watch the Beavers anhilate the Pitt Panthers from the comfort of my own home!

Could be worse, Matty. Have you heard that DirecTV subscribers in Portland don't get KATU (ABC) anymore? Those people couldn't watch the Rose Bowl from their own homes yesterday.

And I love being out west. I can't imagine staying up until midnight to watch a football game.

up7587 wrote:

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:
Even better is when the name of the bowl is now the sponsor itself. No more Citrus Bowl--it's the Capitol One Bowl. Likewise the Peach Bowl is now the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

So next year the Cotton Bowl won't even be played in the Cotton Bowl stadium. What will it be called then?

They might take a que from Prince and call it the "Bowl Game Formerly Known as the Cottonbowl" or the $ Bowl.

I forgot to point out that the Pac-10 finished the year a perfect 5-0 in bowl games. Good luck getting the geniuses on TV to stop drooling over the SEC long enough to talk about the teams out west.

PPT I don't know if you got to watch Brent Mushberger commentate on the Rosebowl yesterday but they made a big deal out of the Pac10 going five and 0. I was in agreement, but thought USC was its usual obnoxious self Yesterday in giving Penn State the beat down. All the Trojans lack is a little humility which would be nice for a change.

Yes, okay, I remember that. They also showed USC's pre-game interpretive dance routine and talked about how "loose" the Trojans are.

Musberger also asked how many watching would like to see USC play the OU-Fla winner. As much as I can't stand him, Pete Carroll may have been right when he said USC could beat anybody. Too bad we won't ever know.

USC, humility? Maybe when Pete Carroll leaves. I think in their minds the Ted Tollner and Paul Hackett eras "never happened".