COLUMN: Football bowl season

My cup bowl-eth over.

It’s too much. It’s out of control. It’s football gone crazy.

And for nuts like me, it’s mostly can’t miss if not background noise sports on TV.

It’s called bowl season. Not cereal bowl, football bowl.

At this time, there is just one football bowl game to go, the National Championship game, which will be played at the jillion-dollar sports palace in Inglewood, California.

And despite the plethora of bowl games already in the books, the championship game will no doubt draw a full house and a big national TV audience.

It’s the yearly Holy Grail for college football fans, unless of course the Bobcats or Grizzlies are playing for the national title in what used to be called 1-AA football.

Is there too much of what was once a good thing?

I think there is. It is at least pigskin saturation run amok. So why not share the pie?

In years past, there were bowl games that meant something, played before packed stadiums and aired in millions of living rooms across the country, all watched by hordes of red-eyed, New Year’s Eve hangover victims.

You had the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the “grand-daddy” of them all, the Rose Bowl on the first day of the year. It made for a great day of college football, even if “hair-of-the-dog” adult beverages were motivation for cracking open another beer and staring at the black and white RCA TV.

What once was a short list of bowl games, which were offered as a reward to teams who won most of their games each year, has grown into a swarm of games featuring 6-win, 6-loss teams.

This year there were games like the Bahamas Bowl, played in, of course, the Bahamas Islands. Two teams slugged it out before national TV audience on Friday the 16th of December.

Problem is, they apparently forgot to tell anyone on the islands there was a game. TV shots from the field showed barren rows of seats, aka, no one was there.

Now, if I was in the Bahamas in December, I would most likely be stretched out in the sand on a beach as the sun thawed out my frozen Montana carcass. I would not be shelling out however much they want for a ticket to be the only guy in the stands watching two teams who were 6-6 on the year.

For more of the same, there was also the “Cure Bowl”, the “Lending Tree Bowl”, the “Myrtle Beach Bowl”, the “Quick Lane Bowl” and the “Gasparilla Bowl” among the scores of bowl games from which to choose.

Why not, I theorized, have some games that would attract more than 10 fans, and could be played right here in Big Sky Country?

Imagine, if you will (or can) the Hot Springs Spa Bowl. Two junior colleges who battled it out could be invited to the home of the Savage Heat, who feature a stadium that would hold way more people than attended the Bahamas Bowl and many others this year.

Beer specials at Fergie’s or the Montana Bar. Time in the hot pools at the Symes. More than enough hotel rooms in town to accommodate the crowd in the Bahamas.

Or, I’m thinking, the Plains VFW Bowl?

Again, two 6-6 teams who “earned” a bowl game experience, would be in for a treat. The beer is cold and cheap at the VFW and there are good motel rooms and plenty of deer to watch. If Plains were over-burdened by the influx of fans, Paradise awaits just six miles away, also with cold beer and prime rib to be had at the Legion Bar and Grill.

Just down the road from Paradise (don’t that sound nice?) lies the resort town of St. Regis.

They have a very scenic football stadium at the high school, with, again, ample seating for the Bahamas Bowl “crowd”. There is a big Super 8 Motel and a few rooms to be reserved in the back of the “Talking Bird Saloon” that would offer a pleasant and affordable stay.

The St. Regis game could be called the “Bi-State Bowl”, in recognition of the successful co-op with Mullan, Idaho to field a very good eight-man football team. Either town would be great for scenery and seating for the Bahamas throng. And if the game were held every other year in Mullan, visitors could venture to the hillside above the stadium and join the “Burn Barrel” crew, taking advantage of free views and “good times” during home games.

The “Blue Hawk Bowl”, hosted by Thompson Falls, would also be a hit, with the widest variety of bars, restaurants and accommodations in the Sanders/Mineral Counties area. Again, a stadium in the woods and friendly folks would have a great time in Thompson Falls.

So you see, like Jell-o, there’s always room for more in the crazy market that is college football. It’s about time some small towns get in on the take. ESPN and the other networks would at least have butts in the stands or trucks parked around the football fields as their cameras panned the stadiums.

And judging by the proliferation of bowl games now being played, there would be more fans than many of the games this past few weeks.

Crazy idea? Yeah, probably.

The worst thing would be many of the fans who ventured to these new bowl games might just like Montana decide to move here.