Commence the Crapfest!

There are 28 college football bowl games to be played over the next month. There are eight good ones in the first week of January. Of the 20 that kickoff in 2004, there is one surprisingly huge game -- the New Year's Eve Liberty Bowl matchup between #10 Boise State and #7 Louisville -- and two other respectable second tier games (the Holiday Bowl and the Peach Bowl on December 30 and 31).

Starting with tonight's New Orleans Bowl "showdown" between North Texas and Southern Miss, there are also 17 completely worthless mid-to-late December games that cheapen the achievement and privilege of playing in a bowl game. In the good old days, there were the four or five major bowls: the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, and Fiesta. Then there were a few second tier games: the Gator, Peach, Citrus, and Holiday. And then there were six or seven lesser bowls which teams were still quite happy to play in such as the Sun, Independence, BlueBonnet, and Liberty. Maybe a total of 16 or so games overall compared to today's 28.

The current system stinks from both ends. There is of course the much publicized issue at the top with the BCS not solving the old problem of crowning a true champion. And there is also this problem at the bottom with the current system flat out killing the classic status and mystique that used to come with just making it to a bowl game.

This year, we have three undefeated teams that will not even get a sniff at the national championship. And at the same time we also have 56 of the 117 Division I programs (48%) making the "post season." The college football "national championship" has always been a farce, and always will be until a four or eight team playoff is instituted. But at least in the past, teams with not-so-special 7-4 records had to sweat out the bowl selection process. Now, even thoroughly mediocre 6-5 teams are almost guaranteed a bowl game.

Bowl games used to come in only two varieties: Worth Watching and Must-See-TV. The current set-up adds a third category to the mix: "snoozer." These extra games water down the whole postseason and tarnish the idea of what a bowl is supposed to be -- a reward for a GOOD season.