2010 Bowl Preview Extravaganza (Part 1)

Alright, call me weird if you want, but I’m a big fan of bowl games. Readers of mine already know my thoughts on the BCS, so thou shan’t be too surprised. Here go my thoughts on bowl games…

You get some weird matchups, some traditional matchups, some teams fired up to play in them, other teams that couldn’t give a rat’s ass (Nebraska fits the mold), big-time upsets, confidence rankings, internal debates about what new coaches mean to their respective teams, gatorade showers (including this beauty right to Nick Saban’s temple), annual Florida St. academic suspensions (hopefully not just a Bowden thing), false rape allegations from crazed fans (I got your back, Ell), Joe Paterno sprinting across the field with a turtle head poking (wait, not a bowl game, but still great), overanalyzing Florida International’s schedule (weak non-con), wandering why the New Mexico Bowl isn’t held on a red field, deciphering the silliest name for a bowl game (Beef O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl narrowly edges the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl), and last but not least, the overjoying feeling of watching 5 bowl games at the same time in a euphoric-hungover-daze on New Year’s Day.

I’ll present you with a compacted preview of each of the bowl games, in descending order of the matchups I am most excited for. That means least excited to most excited. This ain’t your grandfather’s rankings though, so g’ready….

35. Holiday Bowl, Dec 30, Nebraska vs. Washington: Yes, I am making a statement putting this game here. It may not be the worst game on the slate, but it was the worst effort made by selectors. Change it up. Somehow. For my extended thoughts read this.

34. Compass Bowl, Jan 8, Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky: Two boring teams, played in boring Alabama, with a terrible name (Compass Bowl?), and played at a time that should be reserved for good bowl games. AND no Wannnnnnny? No thanks.

33. Music City Bowl, Dec 30, North Carolina vs. Tennessee: As you may have figured by now, I am partial to watching the little schools in bowl games as opposed to the mediocre BCS teams. Plus you’ll most likely hear country music while watching this one.

32. Military Bowl, Dec 29, East Carolina vs. Maryland: Shouldn’t their be one of the military schools in this game? Both of these teams are sorta blah, although East Carolina has allowed nearly 55 points per game over their last 5 games, which peaks my interest a bit.

31. GMAC Bowl, Jan 6, Miami (Ohio) vs. Middle Tennessee St: Nope, won’t call it the GoDaddy.com Bowl. Middle Tennessee St. may be the worst team in a bowl game, but I’ve always had an affinity for their uniforms, as well as the name Blue Raiders.

30. St. Petersburg Bowl, Dec 21, Southern Miss vs. Louisville: Golden Eagles QB Austin Davis must be entering his 8th year of eligibility because I can remember playing with him in NCAA Football 2003. Dude was good then. I didn’t hear one thing about Louisville this year.

29. Meineke Car Care Bowl, Dec 31, South Florida vs. Clemson: Hate including the sponsors as part of the bowl name, but the fine folks at Meineke just hooked me up with an oil change. Oh, the game…It seems both teams’ quarterbacks are question marks at this point due to injuries. For credibility’s sake, I think both backups should play. That’s what bowl season is all about.

28. New Mexico Bowl, Dec 18, BYU vs. UTEP: Upgraded because it’s the first bowl game of the season. Downgraded because this game should be played on a red field. You’re the school to make it happen New Mexico, don’t let us down.

27. TicketCity Bowl, Jan 1, Northwestern vs. Texas Tech: This game is low because I think it’ll be a blowout because the Wildcats haven’t been the same since losing their QB. Poor man’s Cotton Bowl will get swallowed by better games on New Year’s day.

26. Outback Bowl, Jan 1, Florida vs. Penn St: Yea, I put this game here. I’m tired of watching Florida. Tired of hearing about Urban Meyer’s family. Traditions alone don’t cut it in this one. However, I have become a huge Joe Pa fan, and his antics could be the savior of this game.

25. Armed Forces Bowl, Dec 30, Army vs. SMU: You take the Army team from the 1940’s, and the SMU team from the 1980’s, and you got yourself one hell of a bowl game here. I think there’s the potential for June Jones to take his anger from leaving Hawaii out on Army in a very unpatriotic kinda way. Kinda excites me. College Football needs more villains like that.

24. Humanitarian Bowl, Dec 18, Fresno St. vs. Northern Illinois: Blue turf alert! Blue turf alert! The Bulldogs are used to it, the Huskies are not. Northern Illinois will be led by an interim coach after their head coach took off to Minnesota, where he’ll be starting at QB for the Vikings this weekend.

23. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, Jan 9, Boston College vs. Nevada: Both teams will support the cause by fasting the entire day leading up to this one. On the field, B.C.’s stout run defense (ranked #1 in the country) goes up against the nWo Wolfpack’s stud QB, Colin Kaepernick, who found his way on to my Heisman ballot.

22. Little Caesers Bowl, Dec 26, Florida International vs. Toledo: Excited to see Florida Int’l get its first taste of a bowl game. With little else to say, does anybody else remember when Little Caesers used to make the square pizzas? Holy Toledo, those were good!

21. Alamo Bowl, Dec 29, Arizona vs. Oklahoma St: If you tell me about this bowl game 4 weeks ago, you probably could’ve convinced me it was a BCS game. BUT….Arizona has since lost 4 straight games, and Oklahoma St. dropped their pivotal game to Oklahoma. They get their chance for revenge against Bob Stoops’ brother, Mike, who asked for Bob’s gameplan for Christmas.

20. Liberty Bowl, Dec 31, Central Florida vs. Georgia: I enjoy the lesser bowl games set up like this the most, pairing a BCS conference school against a good non-BCS conference team. Gives you a team to root for. I’ve seen UCF a few times this year, and their freshman QB is pretty exciting to watch. UGA brings in their own freshman QB, so we could be getting a glimpse of the future of College Football in this one.

This concludes Part 1 of the 2010 Bowl Preview Extravaganza. You should now be 1/3 of the way ready for the 2010 bowl season. Be sure to check back over the next two days for parts 2 & 3, which will be coming your way on Friday and Saturday, respectively. As always, thanks for reading.