Today used to be one of my favorite days of the year. It trumped Christmas, the 4th of July, National Toilet Day (November 19th according to worldtoilet.org), or any other major holiday. Today is the start of the college bowl season.
It begins a three week stretch where nearly every day has a college football game. A stretch filled with a never ending smorgasbord of over/under bets, teasers, progressives, and the gambling equivalent of a perfect game, the ten team parlay.
The college football season, for the degenerate gambler, is like the pool table at your local bar. Sure, the obnoxious novice trying to impress his lady friend, can get lucky and run the table in between rounds of soco and lime shots. But the real player, the whiskey drinker, knows that it takes weeks of losing to really appreciate the table. To learn to love her quirky idiosyncrasies so he can anticipate them. So when Mr. Soco and lime wants to pull out some of his daddy’s crisp twenty dollar bills, he is ready.
The start of the bowl season is the day where knowing the starting quarterback for the Blue Raiders has turf toe is not a completely useless piece of information. The Blue Raider, not a rowdy smurf pirate as one might think, is the mascot for Middle Tennessee State.
When I woke up on this glorious day, I would feel the weeks of losing were finally going to pay off. I would feel ready. At least that’s how I used to feel.
It has been almost a year since an ill fated wager on the Packers against the Cardinals in last year’s NFL playoffs effectively ended my gambling days. Highlights of that dropped pass in overtime still make me want to club a baby seal’s mom right in the…sorry…getting off topic.
Waking up today I had barely realized that the bowl season was upon us. Looking at the matchups for the three games today, I feel uninformed.
I think that the Cougars of BYU are Mormons, though I am still not quite sure what that entails. I mean, they can’t swear, but they can have lots of wives? The Mormons are taking on El Paso’s branch of the University of Texas which smells like a JV squad, in the New Mexico Bowl.
Shouldn’t New Mexico play in the New Mexico Bowl? Would Bob Hope, rest in peace, ever have Letterman presiding over his annual classic? I don’t think so.
Half-assed Prediction: The Mormons and freshman quarterback Jake Heaps, winners of six of their last seven, will make short work of the Miners from El Paso and then scour Albuquerque for some new wives while the Lobos cry in the corner. BYU 31, UTEP 17
Next up, the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl coming to you from balmy Boise, Idaho. Pitting the Northern Illinios Huskies against the Fresno State Bulldogs on the Blue Field with an 80% chance of snow.
I think that each mascot should only be used by one school. In the event of a conflict, I suggest an Over
The-Top-style arm wrestling competition with Sly Stallone as the guest referee. That way the weaker schools would end up with weaker names, like the Northern Illinios Meerkats and the Fresno State Lhasa Apsos.
Half-assed Prediction: Blue Field usually means lots of points so look for stud senior running back Chad Spann to have a big day. MEERKATS 34, LHASA APSOS 28
Last of the opening day games, R + L Carriers brings us the New Orleans Bowl, and the marquee matchup of Ohio versus Troy. Couldn’t we find something better to sponsor the New Orleans Bowl? Like Flood Insurance perhaps?
Half-Assed prediction: My brother attended Florida Atlantic for two years and I stole one of his shirts that proclaimed, “Destroy Troy”. When in doubt, go with the t-shirt. OHIO 21, TROY 7
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