Bowl Season and other things

A few thoughts on what's taken place in bowl season so far:

BYU beating Oregon 38-8 was a surprise to me. I think Oregon has a talent advantage over BYU, but it's obviously not as big a gap as I thought. You come out and smack somebody around by 30, and that can't be explained by gameplanning and lack of effort alone. Aside from the margin of victory, I think the fact that Oregon scored only 8 points is the biggest shocker for me. They've got some good players on offense, and they had a month to pick apart the Cougar defense on film. It looks really bad to score only 8 points.

Hawaii beat Arizona State in the Hawaii Bowl. It seems that the instant Hawaii becomes bowl eligible, they get an invite from the Hawaii Bowl. I wonder if they'd ever take another bid if somebody else offered. Hawaii is fun to watch, and they hit really hard on defense if nothing else. The crowd is fun to look at. I love those people.

Florida State beat UCLA 44-27 in the Emerald Bowl. That means that even without the blocked punt and interception returns for touchdowns, Florida State still scored 30 points against UCLA's defense, the same unit that held USC's offense to a touchdown. If you ever want to know why people pull their hair out trying to find a bit of predicability in football, that's why.

Oklahoma State beat Alabama in the Independence Bowl. Consider this: with no head coach and a roster that's been depleted by NCAA sanctions, Bama still only lost on a last-second field goal. I'm not saying they deserved to win or are so much better than OSU, but that was still a tad impressive to me.

Cal 45, Texas A&M 10 in the Holiday Bowl. For a long time the Holiday Bowl was the shootout game of the bowl season. Before last year's game, the previous nine winners had averaged 33.7 points a game, and four losers had scored 27 or more. That took a hit last year when Oklahoma beat Oregon 17-14 and this year when A&M got shut out in the second half. The Aggies were 5-2 in their previous seven games and each loss had been by a point, so just looking at the score it's surprising they got hammered the way they did. But watching the game, you could see that Cal clearly had better athletes, better football players, and were the more complete football team. They controlled the line on either side, and smacked the A&M offense around. You're doing pretty well when you have five incompletions the whole game.

The Liberty Bowl may be trying to take the shootout title away from the Holiday:

2005: Tulsa 31, Fresno St. 24

2004: Louisville 44, Boise State 40

This year, South Carolina beat Houston 44-36. You have to feel a little sorry for a defense that Steve Spurrier has a month to prepare for. But Houston used their prep time pretty well, and actually outgained South Carolina. Over 1,000 yards combined between the two. Fun to watch.

I saw the score for the Insight Bowl flash on the bottom of the screen. Minnesota 28, Texas Tech 0. "Don't sleep on Texas Tech," I thought. "That's well within reach of their offense." Final score: Texas Tech 44, Minnesota 41. Hell of a game to watch. Or so I assume, since I wasn't able to watch it. For whatever reason, the NFL Network decided this year to get into the college bowl business. They also televised Thursday night NFL game once the college season, hoping that this would prompt fans to call their cable companies and demand they add NFLN to their listings. I'm glad the Thursday games were stinkers, and I hope the Insight Bowl backfires on them. Thursday night games for the NFL is a dumb idea. Only three days to prepare to face another NFL team is way too little time. I think the games were stinkers because players were tired and coaches didn't have enough time to put in full game plans. For example:

November 26: Cincinnati and Baltimore are both dominant in victory, each shutting out their opponents. 30-0 and 27-0, respectively. November 30: a 13-7 clunker won by Cincinnati. Are you really going to tell me the short week didn't affect the quality of the game?

People should call the bowls and ask that they avoid being broadcast on NFLN until they get a wider audience. You're negotiating from strength, bowl people! Make them become more widespread to accommodate you. Don't let yourself be used as a carrot to attract more viewers to a fledgling operation.

I saw The Good Shepherd over the break. Good movie. I thought the acting was very good. The story is good, and we talked about it a lot afterwards, but I think it could have been put together a little better.

Favorite Christmas present I got: Cubs pullover cap thingy (technical term).

Favorite Christmas present I gave: Light spheres from Pottery Barn.

My mom and I drove down to New Orleans last Friday. This was the first time I'd ridden around since Katrina. I wasn't surprised at the devastation in Gentilly and the Ninth Ward, but I was struck at how it just went on and on, block after block after block. Sixteen months later, there are still intersections without working street lights. One we saw still had a fridge on the roof. A more pleasant surprise was the number of homes in Lakeview that have been rebuilt, or ones that have been razed and the property been rebuilt on.

For the first time in a long time, I sat down with my whole family to watch a Saints game. Each team tried to hand it to the other, but the Saints cut it out in the second half and the Giants kept on going. 30-7 Saints.

Interesting college football recruiting note: Of the top 30 QB's as rated by espn.com, 29 have already given verbal commitments to a school. It's not uncommon for many players to wait till the last minute to declare, so this seems noteworthy to me. I don't know what it means, though.