Bowled Over by the Bowls…

Johnny-on-the-Spot by John Foster

The current college football regular season season has nearly come to an end.

Time for conference championships and then, bring on the college football bowl season.

There was a time when going to a college football bowl game carried a certain degree of worthiness.

Now, regular season mediocrity can result in post-season play.

But, this year’s winner of the Pop-Tarts Bowl on December 28th in Orlando will receive a large toaster treat.

Not quite the same as a bouquet of roses in Pasadena but it goes with the college football game today.

It used to be a school had to win at least 6 regular season games to make the post-season.

Since 2012, teams with as few as 5 wins can go bowling.

Nothing says “bowl worthy” like a 5-7 record.

But, in 1946, South Carolina went to the Gator Bowl with a 2-3-3 ledger.

This season, there will be about 45 different bowl games contested in America.

Eighteen of the 50 states are home to at least one bowl game.

Florida lays claim to 8 while Texas is home to 7.

It hasn’t always been that way.

The Rose Bowl, often referred to as “The grand daddy of all bowl games” was first played in 1916.

It became an annual affair in 1916 and was the only bowl game until the mid 30’s.

Then, in 1935, we saw the birth of the Orange, Sugar and Sun Bowls.

There was the Gator Bowl in 1946, the Citrus Bowl in 1947, followed by the Liberty Bowl in1959.

It started in Philadelphia before making its’ current home in Memphis.

Atlanta became the home of the Peach Bowl in 1968.

The Fiesta Bowl came about in 1971 and was created because of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) after none of its’ schools were invited to the current bowl line-up. Seven years later, the WAC folded.

The Holiday Bowl was born in 1978 and became the Hall of Fame Bowl, then the Outback Bowl in 1986 before it ended up as this year’s ReliaQuest Bowl.

There are at least 90 defunct college football bowl games.

One of those, the Blue Bonnet Bowl, started in 1959 and was played at Rice Stadium in Texas.

Then in 1968, it went to the “8th Wonder of the World” the Houston Astrodome where it stayed until 1984.

The next two seasons, it was back at Rice Stadium as the Blue Bonnet Bowl before it reverted to the Astro Blue Bonnet bowl for one more game in 1987 before succumbing to poor ticket sales and a lack of a sponsor.

Anyone remember the “Ice Bowl” played from 1948-1954 in Fairbanks, Alaska.

It pitted the University of Alaska Fairbanks versus the Ladd Air Force base team and had two scoreless ties in its’ 4 year run.

We also had the “Raisin Bowl” (1946-1949) in Fresno, California, the “Salad Bowl” (1947-1955) in Phoenix, Arizona and the “Grape Bowl” (1947 and 1948 ) in Lodi, California.

There have also been some long-running college all-star contests over the years.

There was the “Blue-Gray Football Classic” from 1939 until 2001 which pitted seniors from the south (The Grays) against those from the North and West (The Grays).

(That was obviously before we started taking down statues of Civil War heroes.)

There was the East-West Shrine Game which was primarily played in San Francisco where it started in 1925.

This year’s bowl season commences on December 16th and doesn’t end until January 8th, 2024 with the National Championship game

Suffice it to say there are more bowl games than “quality” teams available to play in all of those earlier match-ups.

Is is time to hold the “Toilet Bowl” and flush everything?