Anybody Watching the College Bowl Games

[queenbee]

Saw several good ones this evening but the best will be tomorrow.

Outback Jan. 1
11 a.m. Tampa, Fla. Wisconsin vs. Tennessee ESPN

AT&T Cotton Jan. 1
11:30 a.m. Dallas, Texas Missouri vs. Arkansas FOX

Gator Jan. 1
1 p.m. Jacksonville, Fla. Virginia vs. Texas Tech CBS

Capital One Jan. 1
1 p.m. Orlando, Fla. Michigan vs. Florida ABC

Rose presented by Citi Jan. 1
4:30 p.m. Pasadena, Calif. USC vs. Illinois ABC

Allstate Sugar Jan. 1
8:30 p.m. New Orleans, La. Hawaii vs. Georgia FOX

Tostitos Fiesta Jan. 2
8 p.m. Glendale, Ariz. Oklahoma vs. West Virginia FOX

FedEx Orange Jan. 3
8 p.m. Miami, Fla. Virginia Tech vs. Kansas FOX

International Jan. 5
12 p.m. Toronto, Canada Rutgers vs. Ball State ESPN2

GMAC Jan. 6
8 p.m. Mobile, Ala. Tulsa vs. Bowling Green ESPN

BCS National Championship Jan. 7
8 p.m. New Orleans, La. Ohio State vs. LSU FOX

[mac]

I'll be watching some of them.

[avalanche]

QueenBee,
Thanks for the schedule! I will certainly be watching the Sugar Bowl with UGA & Hawaii this evening. I am watching the FL vs Michigan game now & Michigan is ahead by 7 points.
I believe that Tennessee won earlier?
Go SEC!!!!! ;D
Avalanche

[queenbee]

So far the SEC has won all of their games, I hope Florida keeps it up and Georgia finishes it up.

I got indigestion from the last half of my game especially the last 4 minutes.

We intercepted in the end zone and it's the only thing that saved our orange tails.

Florida just intercepted in the Michigan end zone.

[queenbee]

Michigan is making those Gaors sweat.

Might need some gatorade.

[queenbee]

Florida just dropped the SEC ball, now we will have to see what Georgia does.

[queenbee]

Looks like Florida dropped the SEC ball. They were the first SEC team to lose.

However, it was a tough game.

I believe it was better than their championship game against Ohio.

Seems David Cutcliff is leaving Tenn and taking 4 assistants with him to Duke as head coach. We are also losing Trooper Taylor assistant head coach.

Former Tennessee assistant coach Jimmy Dunn attended Sunday’s practice...Dunn, a Tampa native, served as an offensive backs coach for the Vols from 1964-69.

[mac]

I don't get off till 6 but then I'll mosey on home and see what the dawgs do.

[shortcircuit]

I'm hoping for an upset mac!

[mac]

Well, I'm sorry you didn't get your wish............ BAHAHAHAHAHA!

NOT!!!!!!!!

[queenbee]

Dear Hawaii;

Welcome to the SEC.

Love, UGA

[mac]

Yeah, I was kinda feeling sorry for them. June Jones looked like he knew what was about to happen in the first quarter. An how many times did he say, I just want to be able to seem like we deserve to be here.
Thats the BCS for you.

[queenbee]

BCS coaches poll, Did you know I don't like the BCS, have I mentioned that?

I just don't think they were able to deal with the crowd and grandious aspect of the whole thing. Football is a serious business with us folks.
Maybe they should start them out easy next year like against the PAC 10 or Big 10 then ease them into the SEC.

That was almost sad last night. I went to bed at half time, I knew it was over.

[mac]

Yeah, they had too good a season to end it like that.

[queenbee]

Found this interesting article online: Why Georgia or any other SEC team will never play in the Rose Bowl.

For hardcore college football fans, New Year's Day 2008 was essentially upside down.

The Outback, Gator and Capital One bowls -- the games half the nation usually misses due to their hangovers and/or the fact they start so darn early (8 a.m. on the West Coast) -- provided no shortage of excitement. But then when it came time for the purported main events, the Rose and Sugar Bowls, viewers across the country were treated to what was essentially an eight-hour snooze fest.

Many Mailbag readers were understandably miffed. And their anger was almost universally directed at a certain, century-old establishment.

Two BCS games, two blowouts. The two teams that won, Georgia and USC, should have been playing each other in the Rose Bowl. Will the Rose be shamed at all for taking a three-loss team?
--Win Carlisle, Charleston, S.C.

After today, if I ever hear someone talk again about how important the Big Ten-Pac-10 tradition is to the Rose Bowl, I'm going to lose my mind. Why in the name of everything holy were the fans denied a USC-Georgia match up?
--Scott, Austin, Texas

First off, one important clarification on an issue the above readers, and many others, seem confused about. The way the final BCS standings worked out, there's almost no way the Rose Bowl could have paired USC and Georgia. Yes, the Rose specifically chose Illinois to replace Ohio State, but even had the game decided it wanted Georgia, the Sugar Bowl, by losing LSU, would have had to "consent" to allowing the next-ranked SEC team to play elsewhere. There's no way it would have done that. That's not to say the Rose couldn't have selected a higher-ranked team, most notably Missouri, but Georgia was not a realistic possibility.

That said, it's been interesting to see the wave of public animosity that's sprouted up this bowl season toward the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl, in light of both the unpopular Illinois selection and recent comments by the two conference's commissioners emphasizing their adamant opposition to any change to the current BCS model. I've been working on a detailed story that will be posted Friday regarding the politics behind the proposed plus-one game and the unique positions of the three parties my colleague Austin Murphy recently dubbed the "Axis of Obstruction," but you do have to wonder what effect, if any, will the massive backlash toward this year's game have on the future of the Rose Bowl.

It's pretty amazing when you stop and think about just how much the national perception of that game has changed. For fifty years, the Big Ten-Pac-10 stranglehold on the Rose Bowl was not only accepted, it was widely revered even outside those two regions. Nobody complained when a 6-4-1 UCLA team played in Pasadena because there was no formal mechanism in place for selecting a different matchup. Even after the advent of the BCS, you didn't hear much grumbling on the Rose Bowl's continued emphasis on tradition because for the most part it still produced games people wanted to watch (like last year's USC-Michigan matchup).

But a couple of things have changed in recent years. For one, the Rose Bowl had no choice but to host a few non-Big Ten-Pac-10 matchups, and to the shock of absolutely no one, most proved to be no less compelling. In fact the two games involving Texas in 2005 (against Michigan) and '06 (USC) produced the most exciting Rose Bowls in nearly a decade. Meanwhile, the deeper we get into the BCS era, the public (the younger of whom may not even remember a pre-BCS era) is getting that much further removed from its attachment to the old bowl era in general.

At this point, it's fairly obvious to about 90 percent of the country that the BCS, and even the Rose Bowl itself, would benefit from opening the game up to all conferences. Even I, someone who not only grew up in the Midwest but who experienced first-hand the thrill of being an undergrad when my Big Ten school made its first trip to Pasadena in 47 years, feels that way at this point. Fans of other schools are foaming at the mouth for the chance to play in that game. LSU pre-sold 42,000 tickets to the game last year on the mere possibility of being invited.

But that same "pull" that comes with the aura of the Rose Bowl is exactly why the Big Ten and Pac-10 aren't going to voluntarily give up their dibs on the game. One thing most people don't realize is that the two conferences aren't just "partners" with the game -- they actually hold seats on the board that manages the game. While FOX's deal to televise the other four BCS games is an agreement between the network and the BCS itself, the Big Ten and Pac-10 are formally part of ABC's contract with the Rose Bowl.

So basically, as long as the Big Ten and Pac-10 continue to believe it's in their best interest to remain loyal to the Rose Bowl, the Rose Bowl is going to remain understandably loyal to them. But the question the Rose Bowl needs to ask itself the next time it finds itself in a situation like this year's is whether loyalty is more important to them than actually staging a good game.