I sat down to watch the Michigan – Ohio State game this morning. This used to be a great rivalry and was always one of the highlights of the college football season, often deciding, as it did ,the Big Ten representative in the Rose Bowl. Sadly The Michigan Ohio State game views like just another football game nowadays. There are several reasons for this, one obvious reason being the disarray of the Michigan program these last five years. Upon further reflection, however, I realize that there are just so many bowl games today that the traditional rivalry game is no longer judged on its own merits but rather on the implications the game has for the bowl picture. And that is why much of today’s broadcast was spent untangling all the bowl possibilities for Ohio State instead of focusing on the great rivalry Michigan and Ohio State have had over the years. But there are so many bowl games now that announcers can discuss the possibilities for hours. As they did today.

Where there used to be just five Bowl games, all played on New Year’s Day, there are now 35 Bowl games played over the course of a month – from mid December until mid January. On the broadcast today, the announcers mentioned two bowls, the “Fight Hunger Bowl” and the “Humanitarian Bowl” that I was so incredulous about, I had to look them up on the internet. Sure enough there they were – on the 2010 bowl schedule.

With so many bowl games, all but a few of dubious merit, college football has lost much of its spirit. Back in the day a team could have a good ,or even a great season ,and not get to a bowl but that was life and people lived with it. The regular college football season ended on time, shortly after Thanksgiving, and most people gave the game no more thought until New Year’s Day. On that day the Cotton Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, The Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the Orange Bowl were played and that was it. The college football season was over. The next morning people got up, read about the games in the paper as they drank their Folgers, grabbed their brown paper bag lunches and headed out the door to work wistfully beginning to contemplate Spring Training.

Sadly, those days are no more.