Coach potato flagged for intentional grounding

Are college football bowl games passé?

Our beloved University of Wisconsin Badgers are going to something called the ReliaQuest Bowl. At least it’s in Tampa and on January 1. What even is a ReliaQuest? (Apparently, a local cyber-security start-up.) Used to be the Hall of Fame Bowl. From 1996 to 2022 it was the Outback Bowl, named after an Australian-themed steakhouse. Much earlier, from 1947 to 1954, Tampa hosted the Cigar Bowl. Still roll a few cigars in Tampa-St. Pete. 

Give thanks it’s not the Waste Management Bowl. Which suggests that Exact Sciences could buy naming rights of Camp Randall Stadium. How does “Colo-Guard Coliseum” sound?

Braelon Allen will not make the trip to Tampa. He’s pretty much Wisconsin’s offense. We’re playing #13 Louisiana State University of the Borg-like South East Conference. LSU’s Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback may not bother to show either. Can’t risk a pro career in a meaningless game. Is that what bowl games have become?

Would Pat Richter and Ron Vander Kelen have skipped the 1963 Rose Bowl?  (The greatest in history!) That bowl game decided the national championship which, before the four-team college playoff system was adopted for the 2015 season, was a matter of conjecture and hours of radio call-in arguments. That’s half the fun, isn’t it?

If there is meaning in college football, it resides in the playoffs, now only four but expanding next season to 12, when the sport will more resemble college basketball’s March Madness — or the NFL, for that matter. Not really “bowl” games. Add the transfer portal and paying collegiate athletes for their image and likeness — plus conference championship games — and what’s the argument for bowl games?

There are too damn many of them! Would you believe 43? Why does Scooter’s Coffee have a bowl but not Elon Musk? “The Musk Bowl.” Or would it be the X Bowl?

Who would the Badgers play if we return to Pasadena? Southern Cal? UCLA? Washington? Oregon? They’ll be in the Big 18 (which, in 1946, was actually the Big Nine after the University of Chicago quit football and before adding Michigan State in 1949).

Too many bowls

The 5-7 Minnesota Gophers are bowl eligible! They’re going to the QuickLane Bowl for an oil change. In Detroit! Where they have a chance to go 5 and 8! While we’re ranting, we get tired of watching that little fella P.J. Fleck run back and forth on the sidelines, furiously chewing gum like a rabid gopher and shouting gibberish into his headset. (Someone tell the man the control booth has him on mute!) Much more to our liking is the stoic demeanor of Chiefs coach Andy Reid, as played by Wilford Brimley. Touchdown or interception, even the NBC nostril cam detects barely a twitch. Now there is a man in control!  

We were wrong about Jordan Love. He is great and becoming terrific! Out-played Patrick “State Farm” Mahomes at Lambeau Intensive Care Unit Stadium. The Packer QB negotiates the defender in his face and lofts a pass high above Lambeau Field. It falls straight down into a scrum of four players where only the sole Packer can catch it. Poetry in motion.

→ Tony Shalhoub [was at] at Packers-Chiefs game: ‘It’ll be me and Taylor Swift, just sharing a bag of cheese curds’ — GB Press Gazette

We want the NFL box scores to record the number of injuries and some scheme to quantify their severity. Do hospitals in Green Bay cancel all leaves on game day? 

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Someday Jordan Love will join Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers as the temporary fill-in quarterback for the NY Jets but for now, Packers all the way to the Colo-Guard Super Bowl!

Or are we just set in our ways?