Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Bowl Season Coming To An End

There are several people in the sports media who say that all of the "second tier bowls" are meaningless and they don't bother to watch them. I disagree. Let's look at the GMAC Bowl played last night between Central Michigan, out of the Mid America Conference (MAC) and the University of Troy, out of the Sun Belt Conference. the game was an exciting, high-scoring game featuring one of the best quarterbacks in College Football: Central Michigan's Dan LeFevoor.

LeFevoor led his team to another come from behind victory to give CMU a 44-41 overtime win. It is, I believe, the 9th time in his career that he has brought his team back from behind. Many scouts believe he will be a top pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. Who can forget the solid win the Iowa Hawkeyes had over Ga. Tech in the FedEx Orange Bowl. Iowa's defense was outstanding, in particular Linebacker Adrian Clayborne, who was named the MVP of the FedEx Orange Bowl. I truly enjoyed seeing Boise St. and TCU battle it out in the Fiesta Bowl. Both teams came in undefeated and ranked among the top 10 in the country. It was the first time two schools from "Non-BCS" conferences were in a BCS bowl game. I would have liked to see them play one of the "big name" schools, but never the less, I thought it was an entertaining game (Boise St. won 17-10).

Other non-BCs bowls that I thought were very compelling include the Capital One Bowl. Northwestern QB Mike Kafka did everything he could to bring back the Wildcats, who were down 21-7 to Auburn, to tie the game at 21 all. The game went into overtime and Auburn won 36-33. If the Northwestern FG Kicker could have made 1 of his 3 missed field goals, the Wildcats would have upset their SEC opponents. It was fun to see Ohio St. finally win a BCS bowl game. They had lost twice in the National Championship Game in years past, both to LSU and Florida, but were able to beat an exciting Oregon team out of the PAC-10. Well, there's one more game left. It's for ALL the marbles: the BCS National Championship Game between #1 Alabama and #2 Texas. I hope it lives up to the hype. I remember a few years ago when USC played Oklahoma for the National Championship in the FedEx Orange Bowl. There was so much hype, but it ended in a blow out with USC winning something like 45-10. The greatest college football game ever played, in my opinion, was Boise St. vs Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl back in 2006. A heavy underdog, Boise St. upset the Sooners 43-42 in OT, and the BSU running back who scored the touchdown proposed to his fiance, a BSU cheerleader, on national television. I think Alabama will win, but I hope the game is close. I'll go ahead and pick a score: 27-20 in favor of the Crimson Tide.

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