People mark periods of time in a bunch of ways. For example, a lot of people call this the holiday season. Some might go so far to call it Christmas season. Fall in the Northeast might be foliage season, and DC has Cherry Blossom Season in Spring. There’s an unofficial summer season from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and then there’s less desirable periods like hurricane season and flu season, which to be clear is right now.
But, if you’re a college football fan, right now is the throws of what we call Bowl Season, the period from mid-December to early January where about half of all major Division I schools play in a final Bowl Game, typically played in a sunny if not tropical locale and named after some company you’ve probably never heard of. The vast majority of them are meaningless, at least in the most common regard. In other words, they have absolutely no bearing on anyone’s title aspirations, or playoffs, or anything like that. They happen weeks after the end of the regular season, so it’s almost like another team by the time they get they get there. Historically, it was viewed as something of a reward for the players, at least before there were more bowl games than Kardashian weddings. If nothing else, for the coaching staff, it’s a chance to hold official team practices for an extra month or so, which gives you a chance to see some of your younger players in action. That’s assuming the coaching staff is still around, since this is also the season of coaching musical chairs, where aspirations lead winning coaches to bigger and better programs -- and others to the unemployment line. There’s much more that can be said about the grandeur of college football bowl season, like the joy of being able to turn on the TV at a random hour and watch two completely unrelated programs playing in an outdoor stadium where fans can wear shorts. Like today’s Servepro First Responders Bowl in Dallas, featuring natural rivals Boston College and Boise State, for example.
That said, there are a few college football players who will not be participating in bowl games with their respective teams this year. And I’m not including the several who chose to not risk injury because they’re headed for the NFL draft. I’m referring to those who will be suspended from team play before bowl kickoff. It happens for a variety of reasons, even though typically they’re not disclosed by the university. So it usually reads something like “violation of team policies.” Right now, that includes three Alabama football players, who will miss the Orange Bowl as part of the College Football Playoff. Also likely not playing in their Playoff game in the Cotton Bowl are three Clemson athletes for failing a drug test. And if you’re planning on watching today’s Quick Lane Bowl, expect to see Minnesota down a whole bunch of players that are suspended for an “off-the-field” incident following the Wisconsin game -- in other words, a bunch of them got into a fight. There’s more, including some Syracuse players, and probably others I haven’t heard about. But the teams you saw during the regular college football season aren’t necessarily the same teams you’ll see in December and January, which seems fitting given the evolutionary nature of these post-season contests.
Which begs two questions. First, should the reward that is the bowl game be taken from an athlete, unpaid labor who’ve contributed to the team cause for the course of several months? It’s always odd that coaches see fit to suspend players for a game that doesn’t really matter instead of one that does. That’s a generalization of course, since plenty of athletes are suspended during the year, but the number balloons come post season.
And second, given all of the above, we must ask ourselves, why do we still have bowl games anyway? It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, because I do. But most stadiums have a hard time filling the lower tier of these events, much less the whole thing. TV ratings are usually right around a rerun of Matlock, besides the Playoff games. And coaches and athletes use these as a tool instead of a contest. So why do we still play more bowl games that anyone could care to remember, especially now that there’s an actual title game that’s removed most all ambiguity from the process?
It’s a valid question. And maybe someday, that will change with an expanded playoff. Until then, this time of the year is still bowl season.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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