Yeah, I only watched the Outback Bowl because of UGA and last night's game--I literally couldn't muster interest for any of the other games.

I did hear an interesting discussion last week on the radio with Tony Barnhart descrbing how the BCS might get out of the "picking" business in the next agreement aside from the Championship game (or games if they go to the +1) and leave the rest up to the bowls themselves. This was followed by the suggestion that maybe the bowls should be more regional: This business of having an ACC team play in San Francisco and whatnot is beyond ridiculous. That's also why a bowl like the Peach does so well--it's always an ACC-SEC matchup.

Ol' Hebert going nuts and breaking the journalism fourth wall:

Bobby Hebert? Journalist?

Honestly, I haven't spoken to a single person who understands why Lee didn't at least get a shot. Jefferson had the "deer in the headlights" look from the first series, and it never got better. Hell, the interception was basically a "here, take this, just don't hit me again". Atrocious. All night. Many around here are wondering if there's not more to this than just a "coaching" decision.

God, that was the most pathetic game I can recall. To not put in Lee was just idiotic. Les blew it. Big time.

Sucky games are unpredictable with the rankings, WV and Clemson I would have thought to be better, but I agree on your ticket sales/attendance, it should be better and like you said a regional bowl game scenario makes better sense just for travel involved etc. I have worked with the OB on moving their HQ and on charitable developments and unknown to them my wife's grandfather was the youngest founder of the OB so with apologies I got a bit worked up on nixing their historical gravity. For the amount of work, they get little money off the bowl itself and do many great things for golf, tennis, sailing, etc. for juniors internationally and in the locale and I have personally helped with 2 new track facilities installed in lower income neighborhoods, both well utilized. They do good work and create a fervor locally, but even somewhat un(miami)heralded imo.

Both the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl were some of the most entertaining bowl games in years. But as a whole, this year seemed irrelevant... my guess is that interest will continue to wane in bowl games and in a couple years there will be a playoff structure in place ...

I think the Orange Bowl began to suffer when they stopped having Florida State or Miami and/or one of the Big Eight Powers as their featured school. It hosted a lot of national title games from the 70's to the 90's, but then it sort of fell off the map when it wasn't hosting BCS title games. I think the guaranteed automatic bids for the Big East and ACC have killed their chance of getting a marquee match-up, since it isn't logical to send schools like Boise State out to Miami.

I'm not sure I fully agree with regionalizing minor bowls, I just think they need to go back to a the days where the bowl games target name recognition/ fan bases, and a system where they didn't have to contend with conference tie-ins. Nobody wants to see Rutgers take on Iowa State in a bowl, they want to see games like Oklahoma vs Michigan, Alabama vs Ohio State and LSU versus Texas being played on New Years Day.

I also think it would help if more of the BCS conferences followed the lead of the Big Ten/Pac-12 agreement that states each member school will play a team from the other conference in Football and Basketball beginning in 2017. There is a lack of marquee non-conference games outside of match-ups like Oregon/LSU and Boise State/Georgia, and an agreement similar to this between the Big 12 and SEC would go along way to improve the quality of college football games being aired in early September.

I don't get this. Tons of schools send their programs across country, for instance just this year:

Temple went to Albuquerque, NM
SDSU went to New Orleans
Southern Miss went to Hawaii!

Logic goes out the window when yr promised $

Being a WVU fan, I'm a little biased, but even I can't admit that WVU had any reason to be in the Orange Bowl. WVU had a decent season, but it wasn't great. No way a 3-loss team should be in the "top tier" bowl games. That said, they made the best of it and scored 70 points

Next season's kickoff games:

Alabama vs. Michigan @ Cowboys Stadium

Auburn vs. Clemson & Tennessee vs. NC State @ The GA Dome

I'm not sure why they're having two games in Atlanta this year.

"Do you have a question?" LOL

You know damn well why.

And the second the actuarials start showing they make more on a playoff is the day we get a playoff. The Outback Bowl was half empty and I bet the bowl and both they teams made money because of the sponsorships.

I might be in the minority, but the deal for me is cost v expected fun. I'd rather go to Jackson, MS in July than ever go to Tampa. Didn't matter who we were going to play.

I'd actually go to an Orange Bowl, couldn't care less about another Sugar, would only go to Tempe if UGA was playing for the whole shebang, and would get on a plane in a heartbeat to see the Rose Bowl. I think the biggest factor in shite attendance and ratings is the fact that the matchups are often not new, and the bowls are retreads. How many times has UGA played in Borelando or GARmpa in the past 15 years? 9? Blech x 1 mil.

The NC State/Tennessee game was announced a few years back, and I believe that when it was looking like those programs weren't on the rise as much as they'd hoped the CFA Kickoff folks added the Auburn/Clemson a year or two ago. If I recall correctly from a State perspective, it was announced after the season where State went 5-7 (after going 6-7 the year before) but before Russell Wilson's last year here when we went 9-4. Not sure about Tenn's records during those two seasons though.

I decided to mention that the Huskers play at UCLA on September 8th, since this thread is still at the bottom of page one.
Nebraska leads the all-time series 6-4, and has won six of the last seven meetings. The only UCLA triumph came courtesy of Troy Aikman and Charles Arbuckle in 1988.
The Bruins certainly have some talent, which might gel together under Mora better than it did Neuheisel. I'm looking forward to some trash talking with Harry leading up to the game.

Ol JoePa - DEAD

Quite a four month transition. From head coach to couch to cancer to dead. Somewhere in there he also broke his hip -- which I didn't know until I just read the CNN article -- which didn't help.

Matt Millen: "I think he died of a broken heart."

hip, heart, lung. let's not split 12 year olds' pubic hairs here.

Let's not gloss over "suborning child rape" as part of his downfall here.

that was implied, sir. but yes, quite a precipitous fall from grace.

Westboro picketing the funeral should be interesting:

http://www.tmz.com/2012/01/22/joe-paterno-dead-westboro-baptist-church/#.TxyBlXGH1ps

LMAO, holy shit that's funny.

Fuck Matt Millen. Fuck Joe Paterno. Fuck Franco Harris and Fuck Penn State. "But we'll never get to hear his side of the story!" they cry. Fuck 'em. The reason Penn State fans will never hear Paterno's side of the story is because he has chosen to dissemble at the very least, and outright lie at the worst.



A Roman Catholic. Never heard of decades of sexual abuse of young boys at the hands of grown men. Not once. And even though McQueary relayed that the incident was "of a sexual nature," that 100% new concept wasn't at all horrifying or alarming enough to work on right away. "It was a Saturday morning and I didn't want to interfere with their weekends."

Fuck him. His side of the story is bullshit.

I didn't see "to couch" or I would have gotten the implication. Either way, my #1 thing with this since it came out has been to always bring up "child rape" and not shine on what he apparently shined on.

I can almost guarantee a ton of PSU kids will attempt to kick the shit out of them.

i don't know, my grandfather is 5 years older than JoePa was and still doesn't really understand the concept of lesbians (for real, we had that conversation -awkwardly- over the weekend). I can totally understand someone that freaking old struggling to comprehend what he was being told, I just can't understand why he was allowed to still have a job with his old ass.