Oh the Humanity! Of the Humanitarian Bowl
Bowl season never, ever pans out the way one thinks it would. Sometimes it makes sense: the smoke clears, the endless Allstate commercials with Bergwood stop, and you have a team at the end that looks like the national champion. Sometimes Bergwood stops drinking the nacho cheese straight from the fountain and we’re all just as confused as before. Nobody said it was perfect; just immensely profitable. ↵↵Along the way, the bowls can surprise, too. This is especially true if you, like many, watch the early bowls by accident because there’s nothing else on and you crave football of any kind. The New Orleans Bowl turned out to be an overtime thriller; the Alamo Bowl featured Northwestern dragging high-scoring Missouri into an overtime knuckle-buster, as well. Neither had any right to be as entertaining as they were, and yet I was awake at midnight last night watching a game I didn’t have any stake in because ... well, because it was both on and shockingly good.↵
↵↵The worst accusations re: “the bowl system” may be on display this afternoon in prime form, however, as the Humanitarian Bowl rolls out Nevada and Maryland in a game of such national irrelevance and local disinterest it may take the early lead for most crapulent bowl of the 2008 season. ↵
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↵As of two weeks ago, the two schools had sold a reported 24 tickets for the game combined, though Maryland said that number was in reality somewhere around 800 tickets. That doesn't make me feel better, but I'm not the scalper hemorrhaging slightly less on the margins thanks to those additional 776 ticket sales.↵
↵↵Terps Coach Ralph Friedgen isn’t sure how he’ll motivate his team, but you know: they’re just kids! They get excited over just about anything, you know, like shiny things, video games, and waking up in the morning. Surely they’ll be fired up for a football game no matter where it is--↵
↵↵⇥As [Maryland defensive lineman Dean] Muhtadi put it, “We got the shaft with the eighth-place bowl.”↵↵Or maybe not. Attendance is expected to be about 25,000 and Nevada’s blue uniforms may blend into the turf. At 4:30! Only on ESPN! Question: A true humanitarian? Answer: Would not make you watch this game.↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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