Bowl Season Review

This is last time for the next eight and half months that “The Grandeur” devotes a column to the joy that is college football so let’s go out in a bang and talk about bowl season that was.
This season we witnessed 32 bowls, yes that is a crazy amount and yes, some of them we wish we would have never seen. There is a plus to having a lot of bowls. Making a lot of money is one but the biggest seems to be the benefit that the actual teams get. An extra three or four weeks to practice before the long hard months of off-season is big one. The other is that fact that these players get to travel somewhere different and be apart of the whole experience. Ask any player if he enjoyed his bowl trip and most definitely he would say yes. The teams also do good will work in the local communities so many different people get the benefits. The bad thing is just how ridiculous some of these bowls are. We don’t care about half of them and their stupid names (Papajohns.com Bowl and Meineke Car Care Bowl). It’s become a disease and a lot of people wish we could disinvent them, kind of like nuclear weapons and Lindsey Lohan. It’s deteriorating the college football tradition. We should only have bowls that have the old-school names (Orange, Rose, Cotton, etc.) and Chick-fil-A should give back the Peach Bowl. All these other bowls without the classic names should be gone.
But now on to the games themselves. The best of the lot without a doubt had to the Fiesta Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State. To start, let’s throw out all the hoop-la. “Boise St. wasn’t getting respect; this one was for the mid-majors.” All that’s great, but that’s not the main point which is that these were two really good football teams playing as hard as they could to win a football game. It is as simple as that. When it comes down to it, most teams would rather have the victory than the “respect” from columns like this. But with all that aside, it was a great game. People will definitely remember this one all for a while and right they should. As for the play-calling by Chris Petersen at the end: nice. But what is more impressive than the play calls is the execution. The fact that he prepared his players to pull off those kinds of plays at that point in the game is what is really impressive. Now the question seems to be whether Boise should be national champions. The answer is no. Yes they had a great season, yes they played a great game against Oklahoma but their schedule is just not up to par. Put them in the Big 10/12, SEC or other power conference and they lose three and four games. And as much as that breaks all those underdog-lover’s hearts, it’s true. Boise played the game of their life, Oklahoma played mabye average and they still only won by one in overtime. They couldn’t compete week in and week out.
For the Sugar Bowl, we knew at the beginning of the season, we knew in the middle of the season and we know it now: Notre Dame is overrated. LSU ran circles around a team that should have never have been there in the first place. USC also looked good in their win of Michigan. With John David Booty and all those weapons on offense and with that defense, the Trojans will back again in the national hunt next year.
Other good games of the bowl season past included Texas’ shootout win over Iowa 26-24. Colt McCoy is going to be a good one, but Vince Young is the best player ever to roll through Austin and he is the reason they won the National Championship last year. Oklahoma State edged out a close one with Alabama 34-31 on a last second field goal and Georgia made a nice comeback against Virginia Tech to win 31-24.
The “Big One” turned out to be quite interesting. Ohio State is good football team but they just couldn’t handle the speed and athleticism of Florida. It simply just doesn’t exist in the Big 10 or anywhere else for that matter. The SEC and most of the other southern schools have something that nobody has, except maybe outside of the Southern California area. It’s a shame Ted Ginn Jr. was injured so early. He would have made a difference, we saw that on the opening kickoff, but it wouldn’t have matter. Florida’s defense made Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith look grade school (4-14 with 35 yards passing) and Chris Leak, Tim Tebow and the rest of the gang was simply too much for the Ohio St. defense to handle. The Gators dominated the game in nearly every facet and are rightful champions. Urban Meyer, in just his second year has put together a great scheme that fits his player’s abilities and they are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
To finish, this column gives its final rankings. 1. Florida 2. LSU 3. Southern California 4. Boise State 5. Ohio State 6. Louisville 7. Wisconsin 8. Michigan 9. Auburn 10. West Virginia