College Football Bowl Schedule: Winners and Losers

The overabundance of mediocre football known as the College Football Bowl season kicks off Dec. 20 with a quad...fecta(?) of games that are sure to bore anyone to tears. The full 34 game bowl schedule was announced yesterday and as always there are winners and losers.

Winners
Oklahoma - Proving the BCS honchos' theory that the regular season is a playoff is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Utah - Second BCS bowl in school history. The Utes are in a good situation right now. Urban Meyer couldn't have bolted faster, but Kyle Whittingham is a Utah guy having played at BYU and having coached at Utah now for more than 15 years. He's done a good job keeping the standard set by Meyer and is in it for the long haul in SLC.

Cincinnati and Virginia Tech - Does anyone honestly think either of these teams would have gone better than 6-6 in the Big 12?

GMAC Bowl - for some reason this game is the last game played before the BCS national title game and honestly I think I will watch more of it than the Orange Bowl. There's 7500 yards and 69 passing touchdowns between the two QBs David Johnson and Nate Ball and we'll get to see a real stern test for Ball State who got exposed by a 7-5 Buffalo team Friday night in a game you probably didn't watch.

Poinsettia Bowl - Actually, this is the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl matching up Boise State and TCU. No kidding, this is possibly the best non-BCS Bowl game and it's happening Dec. 23. Boise State has had a great season and this is potentially the swan song for Chris Petersen, but TCU is stout and played in the best Non-BCS conference in America. The Poinsettia organizers have to be ecstatic for once that the focus will be on the game and not the pronunciation of the Bowl itself (Poin-SET-uh or Poin-set-EE-uh?)

Cotton and Alamo Bowls - The glut of good teams in the Big 12 created a trickle down effect and these two bowls benefited big time. The Cotton Bowl gets an 11-1 Texas Tech team that should be playing in a BCS Bowl and the Alamo gets Missouri, who disappointed by all tangible measure, but still features an offense that is way better than any Alamo Bowl deserves.

Vanderbilt - The Long time winner of Bowl season, the Commodores have always gotten to cash in on the shared revenue of SEC Bowls without incurring any travel costs. Now, the 'Dores are Bowl eligible and headed to...Nashville. That's right, the Commodores get to play in the Music City Bowl which means nice payout and no travel costs, the perfect scenario for a school without an Athletic department.

Georgia Tech - Similar situation to Vandy's. Tech will finish one of the more surprising seasons in the FBS playing right down the street from campus.

Chick-Fil-a Bowl - as good as it is for Ga Tech to play at home, that still wouldn't drive ticket sales so fortunately for the organizers they landed LSU which, even though this season has been a disappointment for the Bayou Bengals, will pretty much guarantee a sell out.

Notre Dame - How do you reward a 6-6 season that crashed and burned at the end? A trip to Hawaii. Luck of the Irish indeed.


Losers

Texas - If Oklahoma wins the BCS Title game the Longhorns will forever have to live with the fact that they beat the national champions. If Oklahoma loses, Texas will forever have to live with the fact that they beat a team that didn't deserve to play for a national championship instead of them. I know Ohio State is a power house program, but USC set the bar for Texas at 35-3. Anything short of that will ultimately be a disappointment in the Fiesta Bowl.

Texas Tech - Winners of the Missouri award going to the team that inevitably gets left out of the BCS because only two teams from a conference can make it and the winners of the ACC and Big East have to go to BCS games automatically. Come on, you know an Alabama-Texas Tech Sugar Bowl would be the most intriguing game after the national title game. Hell, a Texas-Texas Tech rematch of probably the best game of the year would be better than Texas-Ohio State.

Oregon State - Last year an injury to Dennis Dixon took the Beavers' arch rivals, Oregon, from national title contention to the Sun Bowl. This year, an injury to freshman Phenom Jacquizz Rogers was a big reason why Oregon State went from a possible Rose Bowl appearance for the first time in 44 years to the Sun Bowl. I hear El Paso is lovely in December.

New Orleans - For a city that relies heavily on sports tourism to bolster the economy, Utah couldn't be a worse selection for the crescent city. Utah doesn't have a huge fan base and it's obviously unlikely that a largely Mormon fan base is going to partake in some of the more adult style activities one would normally partake in in New Orleans.

The Orange Bowl - In January 2006 they got the instant classic old timer's bowl between FSU and Penn State, however other than that it's been sparse for the Orange Bowl in terms of intriguing games. Last year was close, but Kansas didn't deserve a spot over Missouri. They've hosted two stinker national title games (OU over FSU, USC over OU) and other than that it's really been a drag as of late. Expect no different with Cincy and Beamer Ball.

The Humanitarian Bowl - the folks in Boise had a dream match up, relatively speaking, in the works to get the home town Broncos against then undefeated Ball State. The Cardinals balked at the offer (presumably because they didn't want the butt whipping) and thusly the hometown team said 'see ya' heading for a game with TCU in San Diego leaving the home folks with Nevada and Maryland. Blech.

The Independence Bowl - Already struggling for survival, this year's edition is sponsorless and it got worse when its tie-in conferences, the Big 12 and SEC, couldn't field enough eligible teams. As a result they get stuck with Northern Illinois and Louisiana Tech. The good news is that La Tech's campus in Ruston is only an hour from Shreveport, but these games rely on sponsors to survive and no company in its right mind wants to sponsor a game featuring teams like this.

The Capital One Bowl - just an Oregon State win against Oregon away from a preseason #1 v. #2 game between Georgia and Ohio State, the Beavers lose to Oregon State bumping USC up to the automatic Rose Bowl bid and Ohio State to an at-large. Michigan State v. Georgia just doesn't have the same buzz.