Jake Russell
@oreojakesters
Those that are doom and gloom about the state of College Football- NIL, realignment, College Football Playoff Expansion run by a possibly corrupt committee, the transfer portal, and… denying bowl games, will tell you that the sport is dying. Notre Dame protesting the college football selection committee after they chose Miami who beat them head-to-head and kept Alabama who lost in a Conference Championship game was a bridge too far. There has been so much rapid fire change on and off the field merely within a matter of several years that everything we know is different aside from when the boys suit up in their pads and play for the love of their university and possibly an absurd trophy during the end of bowl season- THAT is what is pure and real about the heart of college football.
Notre Dame may not want to play for the sacrifice of a character that is an edible trophy avatar, but that’s the holier-than-thou university’s loss. We still have bowl games to play. Here are some absurd, meaningless but also meaning the world, bowl games that have some sort of headline or element of intrigue as we bring this chapter of chaos to a close.
Pop-Tarts Bowl- Georgia Tech vs BYU
Let’s go ahead and address the big pastry in the room- THE most valuable non-Playoff Bowl Game, the Pop-Tarts Bowl, is the one that Notre Dame turned down because they’re afraid of a friendly competition on the field that results in a big Pop-Tart being eaten with a trophy that is a literal toaster. The marketing and everything that the Bowl sponsor has done to make it feel like it matters to the schools and to the audience is exactly why we play the games. To potentially get human wrecking ball Haynes King to cap off his collegiate career as Pop-Tarts Bowl MVP or have a bunch of mormons from BYU celebrating in the most PG-way possible, eating Pop-tarts, is going to be magical.
Go Bowling Military Bowl- Pitt vs East Carolina
This ought to be called the Blue Collar Bowl because this is the exact Bowl Game that gritty ECU played in last year when they got into an all-out brawl against in-state rival NC State, and now we get to see them play a Pitt team that literally plays in a rivalry game called the Backyard Brawl and has one of the most laissez-faire coaches in America with a freshman quarterback. Please, empty the benches! For the kids and the troops!
Reliaquest Bowl- Iowa vs Vanderbilt
The worst thing that happened to Vanderbilt was not being left out of the College Football Playoff, but that Clark Lea’s ascent and turnaround of what was a historically-awful, bottom-of-the-barrel team of a loaded conference into a playoff contender with Diego Pavia and going forward next year. Pavia is going to New York for the Heisman ceremony, and they’re here because no one accepted Clark Lea’s offer of playing a game on backyard grass just to prove they’re worthy of a shot.
It would be the most bittersweet ending of Pavia’s long collegiate career if it went out with a whimper to the stifling Ferentz-led Iowa that wants as many punts in a 13-3 game as possible.
Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl- Penn State vs Clemson
If you would have told college football fans at the beginning of the year that this would be a bowl game matchup, they would have asked you if it was in the quarter or the semifinals of the playoff.
Instead it’s being played in a baseball stadium and sponsored by a tractor company.
Xbox Bowl- Missouri State vs Arkansas State
Missouri State is looking for their first bowl win in program history just after becoming an FBS school for the first time! And we get a new sponsor- the XBox Bowl, which has to be the most “How do you do, fellow kids?” sponsorship that could potentially get a ton of promotion and viral moments of the giveaways and features about ESports athletes or streamers you’ve never heard of.
Valero Alamo Bowl- USC vs TCU
This has to be the most chaotic bowl game that leads to a ton of hijinx on offense, right? It’s almost as if the committe selects the two teams that missed out on reaching the actual playoff because they decide to only play one side of the ball and don’t know how to make a tackle. We had high-flying BYU and Colorado (that didn’t play Shadeur or Travis Hunter), 62 points in an Arizona OU shootout, Washington facing off against Texas with Michael Penix Jr., and who could forget the 2015 TCU triple-overtime 47-41 game in 2015 in which they came back from down 31-0?
The Alamo Bowl is madness and we certainly won’t forget it. We’re likely in for the stereotypical result if it’s the Lincoln Riley teams that just play offense and TCU, the prototype of a Big 12 team.
