During much of the BCS era of college football, the lists of holiday bowl games have left me more ho-hum than yahoo. Not this year. I love the list of games, from the national title contest between Texas and Alabama to many of the lesser-known games.
Longhorn fans, I must admit, I was rooting against you Saturday night, but it was nothing personal. A loss in the Big 12 Conference title game to Nebraska would have thrown the BCS into chaos, and perhaps helped forge the change that college football needs. A playoff system? What a concept.
But, alas, Texas won in literally the final second, and on Jan. 7 will battle an impressive Alabama squad at the Rose Bowl for the national championship. After watching Saturday’s action, my first instinct is to take Alabama, but both teams will have more than a month to prepare for the game, making prognosticating at this stage a bit problematic.
Another game that catches my fancy is the Rose Bowl itself on Jan. 1 between Oregon and Ohio State. I think the Ducks are clicking on all cylinders right now and, unless there’s a major injury between now and then, I like the Pac-10’s chances of winning that one comfortably.
Pete Carroll coached USC to a sixth-place finish in the Pac-10, with losses to Washington, Stanford, Arizona and Oregon.
In recent years, a combination of setbacks to those teams would have put a coach on the hot seat — or worse. But in this case, it earned Carroll and the Trojans a spot in something called the Emerald Bowl against Boston College. What is the Emerald Bowl, you ask? It’s a football game played in a baseball stadium with both teams sharing the same sideline. It will be played the day after Christmas in San Francisco. Fight on!
Other bowls involving Pac-10 schools are the Las Vegas Bowl (Dec. 22), where Oregon State will battle Brigham Young; the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego (Dec. 23) with Cal meeting Utah; the EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C., (Dec. 29) where 6-6 UCLA will face Temple if Army loses on Saturday to Navy; the Holiday Bowl in San Diego (Dec. 30) featuring Arizona against Nebraska; and the Sun Bowl in El Paso (Dec. 31) with Stanford meeting Oklahoma.
Should 6-6 teams really qualify for a bowl game? I think not. But hopefully the Bruins will benefit from the extra practice time before facing the Owls. I don’t even want to contemplate what a loss would do to UCLA. Maybe Army will solve the problem by upsetting Navy at Philadelphia and putting UCLA out of its misery.
Besides the Rose Bowl, the Pac-10 is involved in several other great matchups (at least on paper). Arizona-Nebraska figures to be a great defensive struggle, while Stanford-Oklahoma could be one of the bowl season’s highest-scoring affairs.
Other games that caught my eye when announced (and in no particular order) were:
» New Mexico Bowl (Dec. 19, Wyoming vs. Fresno State)
» Music City Bowl (Dec. 27, Clemson vs. Kentucky)
» Champs Sports Bowl (Dec. 29, Miami vs. Wisconsin)
» Texas Bowl (Dec. 31, Missouri vs. Navy)
» Capital One Bowl (Jan. 1, Penn State vs. LSU)
» Sugar Bowl (Jan. 1, Florida vs. Cincinnati)
» Fiesta Bowl (Jan. 4, Boise State vs. TCU)
— Noozhawk columnist Paul Yarbrough can be reached at pyarbrough@noozhawk.com.