Dear LSU, Louisville, Miami and West Virginia, welcome to Orlando, Fla.
Now go home.
That's the edict from snooty bowl critics who are howling louder than ever that the games are meaningless. I wish they'd actually experience one of the off-Broadway bowls, but that might defuse their holiday griping tradition.
You know, there are too many bowls, they have ridiculous corporate names, nobody watches or cares, and the players get squat.
This year's bah-humbugging has been stoked by Stanford's Christian McCaffrey and LSU's Leonard Fournette, who are skipping their team's bowls to avoid injury and endangering their pending NFL careers.
They've figured out that bowls exploit their talents, and their defections will lead to a mass rebellion that will bring the whole corrupt system to its knees!
Or so the Bowls-are-Meaningless crowd hopes.
Will someone please call Linus van Pelt?
He's the moral compass in the TV classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. Charlie is depressed over the holiday commercialization and wants to discover the true meaning of Christmas.
All sorts of "Peanuts" hijinks ensues and culminates with Linus reading the nativity story from the Bible and the whole gang singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."
I'm not saying you should sing praises to Idaho vs. Colorado State. If I'd had a choice of watching Monday's St. Petersburg Bowl or having a colonoscopy, I'd have jumped on a surgical gurney. But this whole "meaningless" narrative is cynicism run amok.
It defines "meaning" as having an impact on the national championship and claims the College Football Playoff has shot the life and purpose out of every nonplayoff bowl.
I grew up watching countless Orange, Cotton, Gator, Liberty and Sun bowls that had zero effect on the national championship. Nobody griped that they were all "meaningless."
It's popular now because there are 40 bowls, meaning just about every FBS school with a team bus gets a ticket to somewhere.
There's even a bowl in Nassau. Imagine Keith Jackson having to call a game in Nassau.
In its rip of bowls, the San Francisco Chronicle noted a study that found "the economic impact of bowl games in 2015 approached $1.5 billion. Individual regions made between $12 million and $93 million per game."
And that's a bad thing?
The players get crumbs, but that hardly renders the whole enterprise devoid of meaning.
For one thing, there is no law requiring anyone to watch the Advocare V100 Texas Bowl. And if the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl didn't exist, it's not as if ESPN would be running Masterpiece Theater in its place.
In case you're wondering, Old Dominion beat Eastern Michigan 24-20 in Nassau. It apparently was a big deal to the Monarchs.
"This was a life-changing experience," Coach Bobby Wilder said. "We made memories to last a lifetime."
And that has no meaning?
Too much bowl money goes to salaries and perks, but a lot ends up where it should. Or was I hallucinating recently when Orlando's AutoNation Cure Bowl presented a $1.15 million check to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation?
Then there's the real goody-goody stuff. Players in the Russell Athletic Bowl spent Monday morning at Give Kids the World Village, where they played with children who have life-threatening illnesses.
"It is just fun to make them smile," Miami's Corn Elder said.
The Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl will have a "Day For Kids" on Thursday. Think any of the underprivileged children will say, "What, Fournette's not coming? I'm outta here!"
According to the bowl grinches, no player should be at any bowl that isn't sold out, watched by millions and has no championship implications.
Calling Linus.
Some people need to learn the true meaning of meaning.
Sports on 12/28/2016