[Stymie]

Let's be honest.  The only bowl games that would stimulate our fan base are the Playoffs and the Rose.  All the rest are just road trips, for a small number of fans and most of the players.  I can't even remember what bowl game we played in two years ago (the year of "The McCaffrey Conundrum"), whom we played against and who won.

This year, any player who is dinged and a seriously potential Sunday game player (e.g. Love, Smith and Arcega-Whiteside, and maybe Herbig) is playing against the odds if he suits up and plays.  I see these lowly bowls as a chance for future draft picks (e.g. Costello, Parkinson, Little, Sarrell plus the young receivers, running backs and defensive players) to strut their stuff before a 2pm EST audience, and a chance for the 40+ year brigade a chance to have a final on the field bonding with their team mates.

Consider this year's Sun Bowl to be a pre-season (2019) game and a chance to enjoy the charms of El Paso, and please don't slag the young men who decide that it is in their best interest to take a pass of playing this game.....

The problem I have with this  line of thinking that it is OK for a player to skip a game if he decides it is in "his best interest" is what if someone decides it is in his best interest to skip games during the regular season? Is that OK too? Is this game any more "meaningless", than, say, the OSU or UCLA games? Were the people who played in those games playing "against the odds" also?

It is too bad that bowls have so proliferated that playing in one is no longer a big deal to anyone. I can remember when we played in the Sun Bowl after the 1977 season everyone was very excited. No one would have made a comment like this then.

JohnR

I was at El Paso in 1977, and I very much enjoyed the ambience and the win over LSU.  But that was then and now is now.  CFB was a kinder gentler game in those days, and few players hit other players with as much speed and pumped-up muscularity and malice.  I don't think that CTE was an issue or even an acronym in those good ole days.  The few Stanford players who managed to play on Sunday weren't paid that much then, and rarely got seriously hurt, as I recall.  These days, the best players can earn more in 5-10 years than the average programmer can in 40+, and even the hangers-on like Hogan can make nearly $1 million/year without hardly getting in harms way.  What if Bryce gets inadvertently smashed by Pitt, and has to spend the rest of his pediatrician life limping down hospital corridors to his patients?  I'm sure he'd still be fulfilled by his passion, but what if......?

There were 12 bowl games in 1977 (plus one for the minnows).  This year there are 40+ (with lots of minnows).  I know that a lot of people do care, but I do not.

[Stymie]

Let's be honest.  The only bowl games that would stimulate our fan base are the Playoffs and the Rose.  All the rest are just road trips, for a small number of fans and most of the players.  I can't even remember what bowl game we played in two years ago (the year of "The McCaffrey Conundrum"), whom we played against and who won.

This year, any player who is dinged and a seriously potential Sunday game player (e.g. Love, Smith and Arcega-Whiteside, and maybe Herbig) is playing against the odds if he suits up and plays.  I see these lowly bowls as a chance for future draft picks (e.g. Costello, Parkinson, Little, Sarrell plus the young receivers, running backs and defensive players) to strut their stuff before a 2pm EST audience, and a chance for the 40+ year brigade a chance to have a final on the field bonding with their team mates.

Consider this year's Sun Bowl to be a pre-season (2019) game and a chance to enjoy the charms of El Paso, and please don't slag the young men who decide that it is in their best interest to take a pass of playing this game.....

The problem I have with this  line of thinking that it is OK for a player to skip a game if he decides it is in "his best interest" is what if someone decides it is in his best interest to skip games during the regular season? Is that OK too? Is this game any more "meaningless", than, say, the OSU or UCLA games? Were the people who played in those games playing "against the odds" also?

It is too bad that bowls have so proliferated that playing in one is no longer a big deal to anyone. I can remember when we played in the Sun Bowl after the 1977 season everyone was very excited. No one would have made a comment like this then.

JohnR

I was at El Paso in 1977, and I very much enjoyed the ambience and the win over LSU.  But that was then and now is now.  CFB was a kinder gentler game in those days, and few players hit other players with as much speed and pumped-up muscularity and malice.  I don't think that CTE was an issue or even an acronym in those good ole days.  The few Stanford players who managed to play on Sunday weren't paid that much then, and rarely got seriously hurt, as I recall.  These days, the best players can earn more in 5-10 years than the average programmer can in 40+, and even the hangers-on like Hogan can make nearly $1 million/year without hardly getting in harms way.  What if Bryce gets inadvertently smashed by Pitt, and has to spend the rest of his pediatrician life limping down hospital corridors to his patients?  I'm sure he'd still be fulfilled by his passion, but what if......?

There were 12 bowl games in 1977 (plus one for the minnows).  This year there are 40+ (with lots of minnows).  I know that a lot of people do care, but I do not.