Bowl Games

Remember the last time these two teams played on New Year's Day.

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Bad timing to schedule that during the first round of the NFL Playoffs.

 

Some of those are strong: Military Bowl with the PS4 + other things, Capital One Bowl with the $450 Best Buy card, and those cool recliners as part of the gift suites.

 

I said that to someone and their response was that we might be surprised how many might like to travel to warmer weather. I don't know about that, but Minnesota is a far better team than Syracuse. They played Michigan State tighter than Ohio State. I expect them to steam roll Syracuse. I have tickets and I thought it was going to be a rematch of last years game with Texas Tech. That was one of last year's best bowl games.

 

Couple of good ones today. Because we're having a good ol' wintry mix in St. Louis today and because, who am I kidding, I'd watch them all anyway, I'll be watching all four games.

But the USC-Fresno State game sticks out to me. This is clearly one of those games were who wants to be there is going to matter a lot. I'd like to think USC is going to be motivated given the fact that A. they laid an egg in El Paso last year and they would get blasted if they did that again and B. The returning players are looking to get a jump on their competition for positions heading into spring football with a new coach. But then again, this is the Las Vegas Bowl, so maybe they were more concerned with partying than game prep and they lay an egg anyway.

On the surface, it would look like Fresno would struggle with motivation after they had BCS aspirations just a few weeks ago, but I think they'll come to play. Ever since that loss to San Jose State, all of the talk out of Fresno is that this team is hungry to make anything other than just missing out on a BCS bowl this team's legacy.

The New Orleans Bowl should be fun as well. I follow Tulane's play-by-play guy on Twitter and he has been retweeting all kinds of news and notes about the game over the last couple of weeks. Apparently this game has sold a TON of tickets for both sides, so the crowd should be good. And anytime you get two teams that aren't exactly used to playing in bowl games, you know you are going to get good effort. Having two in-state teams makes even better.

I'm a college football nerd, so in an odd way, the Washington State-Colorado State New Mexico Bowl appeals to me as well. I always like to see teams that haven't made a bowl game in a good long while make it to one and when it's two teams in the same game, it's all the better.

And the Idaho Potato Bowl (formerly the Humanitarian Bowl) is always fun because there's a chance that they end up playing in a driving snowstorm. Whether it snows or not remains to be seen, but it's definitely going to be cold, so I'm going to go with the team from Buffalo rather than the one from San Diego.

 

http://www.stubhub.com/texas-bowl-tickets/texas-bowl-houston-reliant-stadium-27-12-2013-4325715/

Texas Bowl tickets going for $0.50 on Stubhub...

 

I remember that game vividly. I was rooting hard for Iowa because my neighbor at the time was a loud, obnoxious LSU fan.

Seeing clips from old Iowa games also serves as a reminder that, believe it or not, at one time not only was Kirk Ferentz earning all that money, but his Iowa teams had some pretty explosive offenses led by guys like Brad Banks and Drew Tate.

 

For that matter, you can get down into field level seats for $1.25. If I still lived in Houston, I'd probably go.

 

Don't forget the FCS semi-final game between Towson and Eastern Washington being played on the most ridiculous looking home field ever.

 

The EWU fans like to call it The Inferno, but I've also heard its more crude nickname: The Tampon.

 

Derek Carr's draft stock is going down unless he pulls a "Frank Reich miracle comeback"

 

What a choke by Washington State.

 

Leach and Wazzu with an amazing meltdown to blow it.

Amazing!

 

How can you give up 3 scores to an overmatched team in the final 3 minutes?

 

This is why I love bowl season. I'll gladly sit down and watch almost every game.

 

Agree 100%. A lot of people give me crap for watching as many bowl games as I do, but the WSU/CSU game earlier is the reason I do. For most people, there probably wasn't much of a reason to watch that game, but it turned into a fun one.

 

Wow what a catch by the Tulane player