Singing the bowl game blues

by Paul Shugar
Staff Writer

Since the CBS started,

I've started to hate New Years Day.

The games just tend to bore me, and make me watch the parades.

I've got the blues.

Oh yes, I've got the bowl game blues.

That seemed to be the song I was singing on New Year’s day.

No, it is not because the Mid-American Conference got only one bowl bid to that amazing Motor City Bowl while good teams like Toledo and Western Michigan sat at home.

I do not care who gets into the bowl games anymore. I know college football is designed to be frustrating and cause controversy so the sport becomes more popular. Good call. Controversy is what will make the XFL millions.

I, like many people, am a member of the "I Hate the BCS System Club," but I admit that it is better than the old system.

Today I vote for the playoff system not because it will do a better job of determining which college team is the best in the land. There will always be controversy about who has the best team in college football.

Today I vote for the playoff system just because I found the bowl games boring this year.

The national championship game was excellent, along with the Florida versus Miami game, because one was a heated rivalry and both games had national championship implications.

After that, the bowl game intensity just seemed to drop right off the page.

It’s like if your parents told you in December about this awesome trip that your family is going to take in the summer. For the first few weeks you are excited and pumped. The trip is the only thing you can talk about. Then it slips out of your mind and finally, when the trip comes, it is just like, "Thank goodness we can finally go."

You are just thankful to go, and you forget all the cool things you said you were going to do over the trip.

College teams take a whole month off between their last regular season game and their bowl game. One whole month of practicing can wear thin and make players’ minds slip off the coming bowl challenge. This fact is true particularly when your preseason goal was the Orange Bowl, but now you are in the (Insert any name here).com Bowl.

Ohio State is a perfect example with their horrible bowl record that led to the firing of coach John Cooper. Ohio State's goal every year is to play in the National Championship game. Imagine being a senior. Your dreams fall short, and instead of even getting the Rose Bowl, you get the Outback Bowl.

That is a bitter pill to have to chew on for a whole month of practice, and naturally, intensity is lost. Ohio State definitely did not come out with any intensity, and South Carolina, who was 0-11 last year and happy to be anywhere over New Year's, mopped the floor with them.

Would we have seen the same lethargic Buckeyes if they were playing in a tournament that started a week after the season and they still had a shot at the national championship?

Let’s just say that I think Cooper might still have his job right now if college football had a playoff.

Not all bowl games were bad over this holiday season. But the games with teams that just seemed upset to work so hard all season to end up with a chance to be 10^th in the nation seemed to just be blah.

The NCAA should just go to playoffs so we can get good football like the great games that seem to happen in the NFL all the time.

We have the regular season intensity nailed just fine. The top two teams in the nation should get perks in the post season, but let's go to playoffs that keep them playing right after the season ends to prevent these post-season doldrums.

Athletes rely on mental toughness to play at their best. When they have to stay off the field for a whole month, they may show up physically sharp, but mentally dull.

Shugar, a sophomore journalism major, had his blues lifted a little bit when Cooper was fired. Send him an e-mail him at ps198099.