Bowling for mediocrity

There used to such a thing called the Motor City Bowl in college football. That was played in Detroit, and typically featured two teams that weren't good enough to qualify for any other bowl, but were glad to have a chance to go to SOME bowl after the regular season was over.

Last time yours truly looked, there were 34 bowl games associated with college football, which means 68 teams get to go to one. Put a different way, that pretty much means any team that posts a record over .500 is going bowling somewhere. Bring on the cheerleaders, strike up the marching bands, and let the small town hype begin. Thing is, after air fare, motel accomodations, and everything else included in taking a team on the road for such games -- despite the prize money -- it actually wound up being a financial loss for most universities to participate in such a venture. Still is.

At that, recently there's only been one bowl game that REALLY mattered, and that's the national championship game. Sure, there are other very respectable bowls, pitting two very respectable teams against each other, and it can be interesting to see such teams battle it out. Though it matters little whether one's team winds up being ranked #3 or #8, because that will be remembered about as long as this blog post, it's still a matter of school pride.

However, the Motor City Bowl was the bottom feeder of them all. A last resort for two teams that couldn't find their way anyplace else. The Motor City Bowl has been renamed the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl. Gee, considering how pizza baron Mike Ilitch owns the Tigers, Red Wings, and everything worthwhile in the Fox district of Detroit, I can't imagine how that happened, but it did.

Problem is, Ilitch can call it whatever he wants, but it's still a bottom feeder that will get two teams to play there, that probably don't want to anyway, while a mere few hundred people are in the stands. So why not think out of the box and make it interesting?

There's a perfect match-up just waiting to happen, which would fill the stadium to capacity.

Can you guess who?

Next time.