Early bowl games no reason to get excited

On Saturday, just four days before Christmas, there were four bowl games.

Unless you are a hardcore fan of one of the eight teams that played Saturday, you probably had about as much interest in those games as you did standing in a long line of people checking out at the store. And, of course, the person at the head of the line was having trouble finding his credit card.

Granted, the Las Vegas and New Orleans bowls have some Arkansas history.

The Razorbacks played in the Las Vegas Bowl 13 years ago and were beaten 31-14 by UNLV, but the players — many of whom piled into cars and drove so they could collect the travel allowance from the NCAA — and coaches all had a great time.

The New Orleans Bowl snubbed the Arkansas State Red Wolves the past two years when it had the choice of taking the Sun Belt champion or another team. On Saturday, for the third consecutive season, Louisiana-Lafayette represented the Sun Belt in the Big Easy.

It was the first time the Ragin’ Cajuns were chosen for the game as the conference champions.

The Red Wolves are on their way to the GoDaddy Bowl for the third consecutive season, and each time they have gone there with an interim head coach.

Saturday’s other two bowls just seem to languish.

The terrain and topography of New Mexico is incredibly interesting for about three hours, but Washington State and Colorado State spent days in the flatlands preparing for the New Mexico Bowl.

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl sounds like something that should involve soup.

Incidentally, Washington State entered the game 6-6 and opened the season with a 31-24 loss at Auburn, which improved almost every week and will face Florida State in the BCS National Championship Game.

As everyone knows, this is the last year of the BCS, and while it has served to provide a national champion — and sometimes a bit of controversy — it finally gives way to a four-team playoff next season.

If this had been the first year of the playoff, the firstround games would have pitted Florida State against Michigan State, and the other would have still assured the SEC of having a team in the championship game as Alabama and Auburn would have squared off in Iron Bowl II.

That might have resulted in Florida State vs. Auburn in the title game, but we’ll never know.

What we do know is the SEC was in the news Saturday after four schools received fines for breaking SEC rules that deal with fan behavior. Mississippi State and Ole Miss were both handed $25,000 fines while Missouri and Auburn were fined $5,000, which is totally ridiculous.

Auburn fans stormed the field after the Tigers beat archrival Alabama, which put them in the SEC Championship Game and eventually led to the BCS National Championship Game. Missouri fans stormed the field after beating Texas A&M and securing a spot in the SEC Championship Game.

Honestly, maybe there should be a clause in those SEC rules that allows fans to celebrate if they have just won a divisional championship or beaten their archrival, or in the case of Ole Miss, an LSU team that was favored.

As for Mississippi State’s cowbells, if you are a visitor the bells are a tradition you can live without. Still, it is a Bulldogs tradition, and even though they were fined in 2010 for ringing their bells at the wrong time — when you are on your way to an upset over Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl, wouldn’t it be hard to find a wrong time to ring them? — maybe they should get a break because they did show restraint for two seasons.

The truth is it was money well spent for all four schools.

They would probably do it all over again, and they will if given the chance.

WALLY HALL