Bowl Games

Maybe it’s because of the Christmas season, but it’s no wonder the college football bowl season is widely considered, the most wonderful time of the year.

For almost three weeks, college football’s finest, and Notre Dame, compete in their most meaningful football game of the year. Sure there are games during the regular season which claim the national spotlight and have meaning, but none like the bowl season.

No other sport can crown 34 post-season champions in a little less than three weeks. The nearest competitor is college basketball with two – the NIT and NCAA championship.

Everybody’s a winner. It’s like they’re going back to their youth league football days when it didn’t matter who won or lost, but how they played the game.

It’s also an opportunity to see games which likely wouldn’t be scheduled. Outside of the anomalies like Ohio State vs. Texas, which played each other in the regular season two years ago, almost every other game has a team slated against an opponent which it hasn’t seen in years, if ever.

Take for example the Outback Bowl, which features Iowa vs. South Carolina. This match-up has never been seen in college football, and likely would have never been seen if not for the three week championship festival.

Big football programs across the country will be competing against one another in a sport that witnesses little variation. With schedules in college football determined three and four years in advances, the bowl season provides the lone surprise in a sport that offers very little.

The bowl season also determines which conference, top to bottom, is the most talented. Comparable to the ACC/Big Ten challenge in basketball, which schedules each conferences No. 1 vs. the others No. 1, it determines which conference has the most depth.

The 34 games also bring out the frauds and phonies which might have been hiding in a weak conference. Take for example Penn State. The Nittany Lions take on USC in the Rose Bowl, where they have the opportunity to validate the national title consideration they received throughout the year. Or, like their counterparts from the 2008 Rose Bowl, Illinois, get manhandled by the very same team.

Though critics question the bowl games, the bowl games leave a lot less questions than the alternative – playoffs.