Extended Football Season Bowling Me Over

As you may already know, my profession is that of a coach. This writing thing is a hobby of mine, therefore I have vowed not to turn this space in the paper into another sports column. But sometimes sports and life intersect, which is the case this time of year as it pertains to the college football bowl phenomenon. First let me say that I am a fan of college sports, football being right at the top of my list. And I’ve been to a bowl game before and loved it, so don’t say I’m sour about the whole deal. My purpose is not to criticize, but simply to make observations. Let’s take it from the top. TOO MANY MEN ON THE FIELD- My senior year of high school (1981-82), there were 15 bowl games (30 teams). Nowadays there are 35 bowl games, meaning 70 teams will play in a bowl and only 50 Division I teams will stay home for the holidays. You don’t even have to have a winning season to go bowling. Some teams finish 6-7 after losing a bowl game. DELAY OF GAME- Most teams finish in November but they don’t play a bowl game until several weeks later. The two teams in the championship game haven’t played since December 4 (37 days). Coaches like it because it gives them over five weeks of extra practice, but I bet the coach’s families don’t appreciate it so much. ILLEGAL SPREAD- The first of the 35 bowl games starts on December 18 and the last doesn’t end until January 10. That’s 24 days of bowl games. They used to all take place on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Now 29 bowl games are played on days other than January 1. Sports junkies love it, but it drives common housewives batty. And there may be a shortage of sports junkies because I noticed a lot of empty seats in the background at some of the bowl games. PERSONNEL FOUL- Coaches who are asked to depart at the end of the regular season are rarely invited to stick around the extra 4-5 weeks to coach in the bowl games, which leads to an interesting dilemma for some schools: Who coaches in the big game?- an irritated lame-duck coach, an auditioning assistant, or an incoming new coach whose name the players can’t even pronounce yet. MEDIA TIMEOUT- When I was growing up, the bowls had simple names, often involving a fruit such as the Peach Bowl or the Orange Bowl. Other plants like the Rose, Cotton, and Sugar were represented, too. Some of them are still around today, but you have to look pretty hard to find their names in the title due to all the sponsors. Did you see the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl? It was a great game but try fitting all that on a t-shirt. OVERTIME- Even with the new BCS system (I’m nowhere near smart enough to figure it out), the national championship could still be decided the next day in the newspaper like it was in 2004 when the coaches selected one team to be champions and the writers selected another. Can anyone besides Jim Mora say playoffs? Playoffs? PLAYOFFS? Gotta run. The BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) Compass Bowl is about to start.