I've always been fascinated with the US college football bowl games which run throughout the holiday season. With the exception of the featured games on New Year's Day and the national semi-finals games on New Year's Eve, the names, the sponsors, the teams and the places the games are played are constantly changing. This year saw the Cure Bowl, Bahamas Bowl, Heart of Dallas Bowl, Quick Lane Bowl and, the best name for a new bowl game, the Potato Bowl which was played in Boise, Idaho and won by the University of Akron Zips over the Utah State University Aggies, 23-21. The Sun Bowl, played for many years in El Paso, Texas, featured a mix of rain and sleet which changed to wet snow as the Washington State Cougars outlasted the University of Miami Hurricanes 20-14.
After watching football for several decades, a certain play which I had long wondered about finally happened. It was in the Pinstripe Bowl, played at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx between the Indiana Hoosiers and the Duke Blue Devils on Boxing Day, which went to overtime. Duke lost the overtime coin toss and were up first from the Indiana 25 yard line. Their possession sputtered and they kicked a field goal. Indiana could have then won the game with a touchdown but also settled for a field goal try of their own to extend the game to another overtime possession. The kick was long enough but, as viewed from several camera angles, it sailed directly over the top of the right goal post - by about three feet. The two referees, one standing under each goal post, ruled the kick as no good. I'm not sure that it was the wrong call but Indiana kicker Griffin Oakes was convinced that the kick was good and demanded a replay review which confirmed the ruling on the field and ended the game. I have long believed that the goal posts in football are simply not high enough and the evidence from the Pinstripe Bowl clearly supports this view. I'm amazed that this has not happened before. I have seen many kicks which reach higher that the goal posts but obviously fly either between or outside them but this is the first time I've seen one fly directly above one of them without being clearly inside or out. I felt for the kicker and his team who deserved a better fate - in the form of certainty about the result - than they got.
This is the second year of the college football playoff system where 4 teams are given berths in the two semi-final games played to be played on Thursday. Oklahoma will play Clemson at 4pm in the Capital One Orange Bowl and Michigan State will face Alabama in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl at 8pm. The winners will play in the National Championship Game on Monday January 11th. I would like to see the playoff format expanded to 8 teams with play over 3 weeks and with the two semi-final games taking place on New Year's Day. They are now played the day before in order to protect the tradition of Rose Bowl and, to a lesser extent, the Sugar Bowl and the huge TV money these games generate. Why not make the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl the two semi-final games? Tradition changes slowly.
On to the Who Cares Bowl, played yesterday in the steady rain in Orchard Park between the Bills and the Dallas Cowboys. The game should have been played on a warm August evening because the line-ups fielded by the two teams looked very much like what we would see in the 4th and final pre-season game. To their credit, the teams played hard and the Bills played well enough to win. I was keeping an eye on the Falcons/Panthers and the Jets/ Patriots. The Jets close out the regular season next week at Orchard Park in a huge game for them. I'm happy for Ryan Fitzpatrick who has played extremely well this season. The Harvard graduate is a good and decent guy who has fashioned a solid career for himself, transitioning most years from back-up to starter. Happy New Year.
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