Holiday Bowl: Nebraska vs Washington (again)

Welcome to the worst bowl game of the season!!!

My excitement level for this game, on a scale of 1-10, is an astounding -3.

I don’t think there is a single team in 1-A football that I’d like to play in a bowl game less than the Washington Huskies. I’d rather play Wyoming. Well, Wyoming has cool uniforms. How about Idaho? Nope, played them already.

Who’s the most boring team in College Football? I usually go with Purdue, but a match up against a future conference foe would be appealing. UConn maybe, but that was our prize for winning. I will settle on Tulane, narrowly edging Virginia.

For those of you unaware, the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Washington Huskies already played each other earlier this season. It was close for almost the entire 1st quarter, before Nebraska imposed their will. By the time I woke up, the early season walkthrough was over with a final score of 56-21.

The Huskers had three different runners (Martinez, Helu, Burkhead) go over the century mark , as they piled up over 500 yards of offense on the way to the rout in Seattle.

The bigger story was Jake “Hurt” Locker, who came into the game ranked #1 on Mel Kiper’s 2011 NFL Draft board. He left the game with a bruised ego, going 4-20 for 71 yards and 2 INT’s. A 20% completion percentage is astronomically bad.

So how could College Football do such an atrocious job of picking this matchup? Were they going for the worst bowl game possible? Did Jake Locker write a sympathetic letter asking for a second chance? Or was it the last laugh in the Nebraska-Big 12 feud?

I don’t think the Big 12 had anything to do with it. They aren’t the deciders of which teams go to which bowl games. It’s the bowl game’s decision. The only effect the Big 12 could’ve had, was to call up the bowl games’ representatives and tell them to pass on Nebraska.

So this means that the Holiday Bowl actually chose this matchup.

Well, part of the problem is that the Pac-10 only has 4 bowl-eligible teams. Weren’t some people calling this the best conference in the nation this season?!?

Therefore, with the Oregon Ducks and Stanford Cardinal off to play in BCS games, the only other eligible team was Arizona (ironically, who Nebraska played in the Holiday Bowl last year), who was chosen for teh superior Insight Bowl. The Holiday Bowl officials could’ve either gone with Washington or broken their conference tie with the Pac-10 (not sure if they can even do that).

Meanwhile, the Big 12 teams chosen ahead of Nebraska look like this: Oklahoma (Fiesta), Texas A&M (Cotton – somehow jumped to 2nd in the pecking order), Oklahoma St (Alamo – better record than and defeated A&M), Missouri (Insight – would’ve begun impending rivalry with Iowa).

It’s interesting to note that Nebraska finished the season with the same conference record as both Oklahoma St and Missouri, while defeating both of them.

However, Nebraska had their chance and they blew it, so I’m not mad about being passed over. I’m mad about the choice of opponent. But, I’m not the only one that feels that way…

Dejon Gomes had this to say on Facebook when the bowl game was announced, “Holiday bowl again…washington again…???”

This immediately made me think one thing, and one thing only. Why would any of the players care about this game? How are they supposed to get up for it? It’s very common to see unmotivated teams in bowl games, and they are usually pretty easy to find. Which is why…..

For now, my prediction is that the Washington Huskies will upset the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Holiday Bowl.