12/18 Bowl Game Open Thread

I enjoy watching football as always.  But there aren't many fans in the seats for these bowl games.

RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl?

Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl presented by Stifel?

Tailgreeter Cure Bowl?

Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl?

Remember when Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl was funny?

Can't watch. 

- Pissed off YouTubeTV customer 

I got WKU +2.5 and the over. Go Hilltoppers!

With most of the bowl games the attendance makes the stadiums look like COVID protocols are in effect.

The Jimmy Kimmel bowl. What a joke.

Most of these early bowls are literally owned by ESPN.  They'll take a sponsorship from anyone willing to pay, and happily put on the game in an empty arena far from either team's home base just to fill a single week of broadcast content.  ESPN is also responsible for the change from bowls requiring that both teams have a winning record to .500 being allowed to get a bowl invite, which caused the quality of team to plummet for the sake of filling up ESPN's early bowls.  And the cherry on top is the known fact that a bunch of these programs will lose money or barely break even via this post-season reward. 

With most of these games, the only real draw would be if fans are so hard up for football that we'll watch anything.  But we've been steeping in good football for months now.

This is a pretty cynical post, but the fact that ESPN is so brazenly toying with sports fans to validate their cost to cable providers is offensive.  I think I'll find some Alpine Skiing to watch.

There’s bad defense and then there’s this. They make msu look like the 85 bears. Same with the game last night. 

These early bowl games are a good demonstration of assessment of relative risk vs. reward.  By that I mean this: these early bowl games have players that, for the most part, do not have a high NFL draft chance, if any chance at the NFL at all.  For the seniors, this is their last football game.  So they play with enthusiasm.

As we get closer to New Years -- but not the playoff games -- we see more and more players opting out.  Kenneth Walker for MSU and Kenny Pickett for Pitt not playing in the Peach Bowl is a notable example.  Their chances of making the NFL are much greater, thus their not risking themselves is a perfectly rational decision: the reward (to play in another game prior to joining the NFL) is far less than the risk (injury, leading to a reduced or eliminated draft status).

So in a sense, these early bowl games may prove more entertaining.  Not necessarily better football, but more entertaining.

I'm expecting one day we will see top players sitting out even championship playoff games.  There's a lot of pressure to not do that today, but one day someone will opt out, and once normalized others will join.  I hope I'm wrong.  But I suspect one day we'll see that happen.

In 1980, there was a grand total of 15 bowl games. 

In 2021, there are 41 bowl games, and this doesn't include the playoff games.

Think I’ll be taking the over in a lot of games. 

The WKU quarterback beating Joe Burrow’s single season TD record only two years later is just amazing. I remember the commentators during the National Championship saying that record would never be broken. 

?

Travis Hunter should enter the transfer portal. 

No love for Ferris State in the D2 championship game tonight at 9pm ET?

Fly high, Eagles.  Smash that "university".

If nothing else, you can hopefully watch Liberty and BYU lose. 

EMU losing a bloodbath.  Creighton is still the superior coach though.  I'd like to see Freeze try to win with Ypsi hookers