Every bowl season, we are treated to a familiar refrain “our bowl game is meaningless.”
As to winning a national title, sure only a couple of games can lead to that, and next season, only 6 will have that distinction.
But this is such a strange fret or complaint, because the bowl games from their inception were not intended to have such a meaning.
Instead, they were celebratory events in warm weather locations that stood on their own, allowing fans and teams to measure themselves against teams from other sections of the country, and catch some rays and vacate a little on or near January 1st.
Also, though purely “exhibitions” that for decades had no effect on polls and rankings, it allowed college football fans to focus on teams they otherwise could not watch/listen to during the season, from other conferences and/or sections of a huge nation.
Notre Dame didn’t even participate in those old “meaningless” bowl games between 1924 and 1969, when I assume the money or rankings lured them into playing.
The Fighting Irish might try “to win one for the Gipper,” in October, but not on January 1st.
I’m now 60 years of age. For decades, I watched with envy, other SEC schools playing for the simple love of the game, in places that to me sounded warm and exotic . . . especially those Sunny Florida Bowls, set up to imitate “the Granddaddy of Them All,” the Rose Bowl, in Sunny Southern California.
I loved getting to see not only SEC teams, but teams from the Pacific Northwest, California, Texas and other places in the middle of the country, and many other teams I didn’t get to focus upon during the regular season.
In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I had not gotten to see most bowl participants during the regular season, because there were so few nationally televised, regular season try games each Saturday.
Kentucky, for example, played a regular season, nationally televised game against Georgia Tech five years before my birth in 1958. Kentucky’s next regular season nationally televised game was 17 years later, in 1975, against Jerry Claiborne’s Maryland Terrapins.
Only in the mid-1980’s, with a massive anti-trust lawsuit, and the simultaneous development of cable sports networks, were there many games available each Saturday.
BUTTT, right around Christmas time, until January 1st, each year, there was “an explosion,” of 10 to 15 Bowl games, generally nationally or regionally televised . . . and even the elders in my family who did not care for college sports . . . let the youngsters get their fill of those bowl games, especially on January 1st.
Bowl games sort of held the aura of the Kentucky Derby, the Olympics, big boxing matches and the World Series. You might not know everything about the sport, but back in radio days, and then later with only two or three accessible TV stations, big sporting events, especially on or about vacation days like Christmas and January 1st when everyone was off of work, held the nation’s attention.
An old example of what I’m saying: in World War II, at checkpoints in Europe, soldiers grilled one another on sports topics. Germans could look, dress and sound just like GI’s, but few Germans knew the “Brown Bomber” was boxer Joe Lewis, or who had won the World Series or the Rose Bowl.
Although college bowl games were truly irrelevant for the polls for much of their existence, and then extremely inconsistent regarding meaningful impact until the BCS era of the 1990’s, they were pretty big events. Kentucky’s greatest football victory was played in New Orleans in January 1st, 1951, when Bryant’s Cats snapped Oklahoma and Bud Walton’s 32 game winning steak, 13-7 in the Sugar Bowl.
That game had no impact on the rankings of that era. Yet, more than 80,000 people watched it live, and millions listened to it on national radio.
The Gator Bowl has some history: it was the first nationally televised Bowl game, IIRC, in 1955, Vandy upset Auburn in a rare match between schools of the same conference.
I’m pretty sure that the famous Woody Hays punch of an opposing player was in the Gator Bowl in the early 70’s.
So anyhow, when you see posters who are middle-aged talk about loving bowl season, it isn’t necessarily based upon the national title.
I’d like to see if we can beat an 8-4 Clemson, for the sake of beating Clemson.
I’ll watch every minute of every bowl game I can.
Can Jon Sumrall get Troy to 12 wins, again?
Can Neal Brown build on his best season at West Virginia, and get a ninth win?
Just how bad will UGA beat FSU?
Can the SEC win four of the six NYD6 bowls?
Will Iowa’s stingy defense stop an explosive LSU offense in the Citrus?
How will Mizzou fare with Ohio State?
I love bowl season.
As to winning a national title, sure only a couple of games can lead to that, and next season, only 6 will have that distinction.
But this is such a strange fret or complaint, because the bowl games from their inception were not intended to have such a meaning.
Instead, they were celebratory events in warm weather locations that stood on their own, allowing fans and teams to measure themselves against teams from other sections of the country, and catch some rays and vacate a little on or near January 1st.
Also, though purely “exhibitions” that for decades had no effect on polls and rankings, it allowed college football fans to focus on teams they otherwise could not watch/listen to during the season, from other conferences and/or sections of a huge nation.
Notre Dame didn’t even participate in those old “meaningless” bowl games between 1924 and 1969, when I assume the money or rankings lured them into playing.
The Fighting Irish might try “to win one for the Gipper,” in October, but not on January 1st.
I’m now 60 years of age. For decades, I watched with envy, other SEC schools playing for the simple love of the game, in places that to me sounded warm and exotic . . . especially those Sunny Florida Bowls, set up to imitate “the Granddaddy of Them All,” the Rose Bowl, in Sunny Southern California.
I loved getting to see not only SEC teams, but teams from the Pacific Northwest, California, Texas and other places in the middle of the country, and many other teams I didn’t get to focus upon during the regular season.
In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I had not gotten to see most bowl participants during the regular season, because there were so few nationally televised, regular season try games each Saturday.
Kentucky, for example, played a regular season, nationally televised game against Georgia Tech five years before my birth in 1958. Kentucky’s next regular season nationally televised game was 17 years later, in 1975, against Jerry Claiborne’s Maryland Terrapins.
Only in the mid-1980’s, with a massive anti-trust lawsuit, and the simultaneous development of cable sports networks, were there many games available each Saturday.
BUTTT, right around Christmas time, until January 1st, each year, there was “an explosion,” of 10 to 15 Bowl games, generally nationally or regionally televised . . . and even the elders in my family who did not care for college sports . . . let the youngsters get their fill of those bowl games, especially on January 1st.
Bowl games sort of held the aura of the Kentucky Derby, the Olympics, big boxing matches and the World Series. You might not know everything about the sport, but back in radio days, and then later with only two or three accessible TV stations, big sporting events, especially on or about vacation days like Christmas and January 1st when everyone was off of work, held the nation’s attention.
An old example of what I’m saying: in World War II, at checkpoints in Europe, soldiers grilled one another on sports topics. Germans could look, dress and sound just like GI’s, but few Germans knew the “Brown Bomber” was boxer Joe Lewis, or who had won the World Series or the Rose Bowl.
Although college bowl games were truly irrelevant for the polls for much of their existence, and then extremely inconsistent regarding meaningful impact until the BCS era of the 1990’s, they were pretty big events. Kentucky’s greatest football victory was played in New Orleans in January 1st, 1951, when Bryant’s Cats snapped Oklahoma and Bud Walton’s 32 game winning steak, 13-7 in the Sugar Bowl.
That game had no impact on the rankings of that era. Yet, more than 80,000 people watched it live, and millions listened to it on national radio.
The Gator Bowl has some history: it was the first nationally televised Bowl game, IIRC, in 1955, Vandy upset Auburn in a rare match between schools of the same conference.
I’m pretty sure that the famous Woody Hays punch of an opposing player was in the Gator Bowl in the early 70’s.
So anyhow, when you see posters who are middle-aged talk about loving bowl season, it isn’t necessarily based upon the national title.
I’d like to see if we can beat an 8-4 Clemson, for the sake of beating Clemson.
I’ll watch every minute of every bowl game I can.
Can Jon Sumrall get Troy to 12 wins, again?
Can Neal Brown build on his best season at West Virginia, and get a ninth win?
Just how bad will UGA beat FSU?
Can the SEC win four of the six NYD6 bowls?
Will Iowa’s stingy defense stop an explosive LSU offense in the Citrus?
How will Mizzou fare with Ohio State?
I love bowl season.
Last edited: