ONCE UPON a not-so-distant time, you might have heard arguments from many quarters that the ridiculous number of Bowl games every year was getting, well, more ridiculous. Because every winter there seemed to be more and more of ‘em.
Any college football team with six wins was eligible for the post-season, and, sure enough, ’most everybody who was eligible went to a Bowl, however obscure. Can you rememberthese navel-gazers just from last season?
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Arizona State 62, Navy 28.
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl: Rice 33, Air Force 14.
New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Syracuse 38, West Virginia 14.
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl: Baylor 49, UCLA 26.
There’s also something called the Gildan New Mexico Bowl. What’s a Gildan?
Then there’s the MAACO Bowl, and what in the world MAACO stands for is just begging for a Google search.
This thing called the Belk Bowl sounds made up.
And guess where the Heart of Dallas Bowl is played? Good. Now name the team that went 3-5 in the Big Ten that lost-big-to Oklahoma State in that Bowl.
If you think, or have ever thought,that the number of Bowl games has become a joke in the sporting world . . . . You haven’t thought of this: Another obvious Bowl just begs to be created.
The Chicken and Rice and Soybean Bowl! Right here in Arkansas. Little Rock! War Memorial Stadium!
YES, INDEED, we want a Bowl game. Everybody else has one.
This paper’s sports staff reports that a Bowl game for Arkansas is already in the planning
stages. By planning stages,
they might mean just a bunch
of talk among the state’s
movers-and-shakers and a
couple of smaller football conferences. But that’s plentyenough to get editorial writers
desperate for a subject to chime in.
Wally Hall reports that Interested Parties are talking to ESPN and Fox. Ya gotta have a TV contract for a bowl, ya know.
The names of sponsors are being tossed around like a mixed salad.
The commentariat is awake again. And it’s not easy to rouse it in the summer heat around here.
Who says there are too many bowl games? You never heard that here. If even Shreveport, La., gets a bowl game, shouldn’t Little Rock, Ark., get one, too?
We could put that Independence Bowl to shame.
Bring it on.
Editorial, Pages 16 on 06/29/2013