Otus the Head Cat
Bowl fans suck it up and power through.
From Dec. 16 through Friday night, there have been 31 (count ’em) college football bowl games. It takes a true fan to watch all the games in which student athletes play simply for the glory of their alma maters. That must be it because only about 2 percent of players get drafted by the NFL.
I mean, other than the Camellia Bowl, where Middle Tennessee downed Arkansas State 35-30, who but the teams involved could really be interested in the Celebration Bowl, the Dollar General Bowl, the Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl or the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl in St. Petersburg, Fla.?
Fascinating fact: Cheribundi Tart Cherry is 100 percent juice, not from concentrate and contains antioxidants that reduce inflammation and speed muscle recovery. And — and — it contains naturally occurring melatonin to help improve sleep — just like its bowl game, where Florida Atlantic University whipped the University of Akron 50-3.
Trivia: Akron’s team name is the Zips, after “zippers,” large rubber overshoes made by the BF Goodrich Co. of Akron. Now you know.
The Bad Boys Mowers Gasparilla Bowl was played Dec. 21 and saw the mighty Temple Owls squash the Florida International University Panthers 28-3.
Bad Boys Mowers is based out of Batesville and is a brand of zero-turn riding lawn mowers. It held its annual dealers convention in Little Rock in October at the Statehouse Convention Center, pronouncing it “our most exciting and entertaining dealer meeting yet.”
In addition to sponsoring the Gasparilla Bowl, Bad Boys recently announced it was sponsoring Arkansas native and Season 9 contestant on The Voice, Barrett Baber, saying “the Arkansas home-based partnership naturally fell into place.”
The Gasparilla Bowl seems to be the example being picked on most from those citing the surfeit of bowl games. It’s being cited even more than the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl, the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl or the Tony and Susan Alamo Bowl in San Antonio.
That’s unfair, because the Gasparilla Bowl has a long and storied tradition dating all the way back to 2008 when it was first known as the magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl (magicJack was a thing you plugged into your computer that let you make phone calls).
From 2009 to 2013, it was the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl (there are four restaurant locations in Arkansas). In 2014, it became the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, then devolved back to plain old St. Petersburg Bowl in 2015 and 2016. Finally this year, Bad Boys joined up.
Gasparilla comes from mythical pirate Jose Gaspar, the inspiration for Tampa Bay’s annual world-famous Gasparilla Pirate Festival.
When Owner was a boy, there were only eight bowl games, then 11 games by 1970. In reality, only four were major bowls — Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Rose bowls.
When did the bowl explosion occur? Follow the money and the naming rights. By the end of the 1990s, there were 35 bowl games. The glut o’ games was why for the 2014-15 season the current committee-chosen College Football Playoff system was settled upon. It’s a four-team, single-elimination tournament that will culminate on Jan. 8 in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, any football fan worth his nachos and Bud Light will need to warm up by watching the four bowl games today and the additional five on Monday, including the final two — the only ones that matter.
Today’s games include the TaxSlayer Bowl, the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl and Capital One Orange Bowl. Those games are sponsored by, in turn, an online tax preparation service, an auto parts retailer, a home video gaming outfit and a credit card company.
Monday’s contests include the Outback Bowl (originally the Hall of Fame Bowl), Chickfil-A Peach Bowl and Citrus Bowl presented by Overton’s (an outdoors and sporting good store).
Over the years, that last one has been known as the Tangerine Bowl (1947–1982), the Florida Citrus Bowl (1983–2002), the Capital One Bowl (2003–2014) and the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl (2015-2017).
The two semifinal evening games will be the Rose Bowl presented by Northwestern Mutual (Oklahoma vs. Georgia), and the Allstate Sugar Bowl (Clemson vs. Alabama). The winners duke it out Jan. 8 in the College Football Playoff National Championship.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that Otus is open to renaming his column for the right price: Otus the Head Cat presented by (your company here).
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of Z X humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail: mstorey@arkansasonline.com