FAYETTEVILLE – College football’s bowls aren’t going away any time soon. Really. The bowl season starts Saturday and rolls on for 20 days, culminating with the Jan. 8 BCS national championship game between Florida and Oklahoma in Miami. Only four days during that span are unadorned by postseason college football, including Christmas Day. That’s 34 games in 16 days, a blazing holiday pace – rivaled only by Santa himself – that even the pro-NCAA playoff crowd would have to admire. With no playoff system in sight, the slogan seems to be the more the merrier for college football fans. Even if it means enduring Hawaii vs. Notre Dame – with a combined record of 13-12 – in the Sheraton Hotels Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, Colorado State vs. Fresno State – Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference also-rans, respectively – in the New Mexico Bowl, and Florida Atlantic vs. Central Michigan in the meat locker, er, Detroit’s Motor City Bowl. Yet for every humdrum September-sounding matchup, there are an equal number of gems, such as the Dec. 23 Poinsettia Bowl between Boise State (12-0) and TCU (10-2), or the Oklahoma State-Oregon showdown in the Holiday Bowl, where calculators will be needed to tally the yards and points.
nwanews.com
12/19/08
