It’s Bowl Season!!!!

Are you as excited about the 345 bowls as I am? No? Ok, me neither. It’s hard to get excited about 34 bowls when only one of them counts (the BCS National Championship game pitting Florida and Oklahoma) and the rest are just hot garbage designed to make as much money as possible. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list. 

2008-09 College Football Bowl Schedule BOWL LOCATION DATE/TIME NETWORK EagleBank Bowl Wake Forest vs. Navy Washington, D.C. RFK Stadium Dec. 20, 11 a.m. ESPN New Mexico Colorado State vs. Fresno State Albuquerque University Stadium Dec. 20, 2:30 p.m. ESPN magicJack St. Petersburg Memphis vs. South Florida St. Petersburg. Fla. Tropicana Field Dec. 20, 4:30 p.m. ESPN2 Pioneer Las Vegas BYU vs. Arizona Las Vegas Sam Boyd Stadium Dec. 20, 8 p.m. ESPN R+L Carriers New Orleans Southern Miss vs. Troy New Orleans Superdome Dec. 21, 8:15 p.m. ESPN San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Boise State vs. TCU San Diego Qualcomm Stadium Dec. 23, 8 p.m. ESPN Sheraton Hawaii Hawaii vs. Notre Dame Honolulu Aloha Stadium Dec. 24, 8 p.m. ESPN Motor City Florida Atlantic vs. Central Michigan Detroit Ford Field Dec. 26, 7:30       p.m. ESPN Meineke Car Care West Virginia vs. North Carolina Charlotte, N.C. Bank of America Stadium Dec. 27, 1 p.m. ESPN Champs Sports Wisconsin vs. Florida State Orlando, Fla. Florida Citrus Bowl Dec. 27, 4:30 p.m. ESPN Emerald Miami (Fla.) vs. California San Francisco AT&T Park Dec. 27, 8 p.m. ESPN Independence Northern Illinois vs. Louisiana Tech Shreveport, La. Independence Stadium Dec. 28, 8:15 p.m. ESPN Papajohns.com NC State vs. Rutgers Birmingham, Ala. Legion Field Dec. 29, 3 p.m. ESPN Valero Alamo Missouri vs. Northwestern San Antonio Alamodome Dec. 29, 8 p.m. ESPN Roady’s Humanitarian Maryland vs. Nevada Boise, Idaho Bronco Stadium Dec. 30, 4:30 p.m. ESPN Texas  Western Michigan vs. Rice Houston Reliant Stadium Dec. 30, 8 p.m. NFL Network Pacific Life Holiday Oklahoma State vs. Oregon San Diego Qualcomm Stadium Dec. 30, 8 p.m. ESPN Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Houston vs. Air Force Fort Worth, Texas Amon G. Carter Stadium Dec. 31, Noon ESPN Brut Sun Oregon State vs. Pittsburgh El Paso, Texas Sun Bowl Dec. 31, 2 p.m. CBS Gaylord Hotels Music City Boston College vs. Vanderbilt Nashville, Tenn. LP Field Dec. 31, 3:30 p.m. ESPN Insight Kansas vs. Minnesota Tempe, Ariz. Sun Devil Stadium Dec. 31, 5:30 p.m. NFL Network Chick-fil-A LSU vs. Georgia Tech Atlanta Georgia Dome Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. ESPN Outback South Carolina vs. Iowa Tampa, Fla. Raymond James Stadium Jan. 1, 2009, 11 a.m. ESPN Capital One Georgia vs. Michigan State Orlando, Fla. Florida Citrus Bowl Jan. 1, 2009, 1 p.m. ABC Konica Minolta Gator Nebraska vs. Clemson Jacksonville, Fla. Jacksonville Municipal Stadium Jan. 1, 2009, 1 p.m. CBS Rose Bowl Game Presented by Citi Penn State vs. USC Pasadena, Calif. Rose Bowl Jan. 1, 2009, 4:30 p.m. ABC FedEx Orange Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech Miami Dolphin Stadium Jan. 1, 2009, 8:30 p.m. FOX AT&T Cotton Ole Miss vs. Texas Tech Dallas Cotton Bowl Jan. 2, 2009, 2 p.m. FOX AutoZone Liberty  Kentucky vs. East Carolina Memphis, Tenn. Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium Jan. 2, 2009, 5 p.m. ESPN Allstate Sugar Utah vs. Alabama New Orleans Superdome Jan. 2, 2009, 8 p.m. FOX International Buffalo vs. Connecticut Toronto Rogers Centre Jan. 3, 2009, Noon ESPN2 Tostitos Fiesta Ohio State vs. Texas Glendale, Ariz. University of Phoenix Stadium Jan. 5, 2009, 8 p.m. FOX GMAC Ball State vs. Tulsa Mobile, Ala. Ladd-Peebles Stadium Jan. 6, 2009, 8 p.m. ESPN FedEx BCS National Championship Game Florida vs. Oklahoma Miami Dolphin Stadium Jan. 8, 2009, 8 p.m. FOX

I actually intend to all of those games. It’s the highlight of my year…or not. And you know the sad part about all of this bowl nonsense? I’ll probably end up watching at least a portion of all these games. 

The thing that I really hate about the bowls are that they are the reason we do not have a playoff. College presidents and television networks (ESPN!) have such a stake in these bowls and apparently so much money is made off these craptacular games, that we will probably never see a playoff – and that sucks.

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel has a brilliant plan for a playoff in a recent column of his:

Wouldn’t that be awesome? We’d have about three amazing weeks of college football to determine who is actually the real champion of college football and not the champion that was determined to be better than everyone else because of a computer ranking. Instead of having thrilling games to close out the college football season (and I would argue that college football’s regular season is the best in all of sports), we limp in with games such as Motor City Bowl or the EagleBank bowl. This system sucks and it isn’t changing anytime soon.

Enjoy your lovely bowl season everyone

Can CC Handle the Big Apple?

With the news that CC Sabathia has agreed to a deal with the New York Yankees, the question remains: can the hefty lefty with a questionable postseason record tame the nation’s biggest market with even bigger expectations?

The following is an exerpt from Buster Olney’s blog about the situation:

Sabathia will get the largest contract ever for a pitcher, Joel Sherman reports, and he is embracing the pressure of going into New York as a savior. That challenge eventually destroyed Chuck Knoblauch and confounded Roger Clemens for most of two seasons. It’s a challenge that still seems to gnaw at Alex Rodriguez.

New Yorkers want their athletes tough and able to come through in clutch situations. In their eyes, Derek Jeter is a true New Yorker…Alex Rodriguez is not. CC would probably best be wise to avoid the A-ROD philosophy on handling New York (i.e. get paid the richest contract of all time for someone in his position and not live up to expectations).

I like CC and hope he does well in NYC. He was very classy during his time in Cleveland and left on a very positive note with his letter to Clevelander’s in the Plain Dealer.

It was weird rooting against him as a Brewer whenever he would go up against my boys on the Northside of Chicago and it will probably be weird seeing him in Yankee pinstripes but I think I’ll get used to it. I just hope that the good guy CC can get used to New York and the unbelieveably high expectations placed on their Yankees.

Big Apple don’t take a bite out of him because Sabathia’s left arm just brought the Yankees that much more closer to a title