Bowled over

I see where UNR is now set to play the University of Miami in something called the MCS Computer Bowl, which takes place in Boise on Dec. 31. That’s all fine and dandy for the Pack, and I wish them the best against the marauding Floridians, but two questions immediately arise. (1) Who thought to have a bowl game in Idaho on the last day of December, and (2) why did our guys get stuck playing in it?

Boise? Bowl game? December? Aren’t bowl games supposed to be in places that have a reasonable chance of being somewhat warm? Like Tucson? Tampa? Montego Bay? This game, this MCS Computer Bowl, is in Boise. Boise, Idaho? You sure there isn’t a Boise, Ala., or Boise, Curacao, or somethin’?

Then, there’s the name itself. The MCS Computer Bowl. Dazzling. A name that positively bursts with the excitement of big-time college football. At this point, with every one of the 687 bowl games completely whored out a la the MCS Computer Bowl, you’d think that one bowl committee, just one, would figure out that the best way for them to stand out in the glaze-inducing onslaught of these events is to be the one game that isn’t sponsored by some imperial corporate entity. Or, at least, doesn’t whore the name out when it sells the sponsorship. In a context that is now loaded up with the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, the Papa Johns dot com Bowl, and The Washington Lobbyists Pure Gravy Bowl (can you spot the fake?), it’d be sorta cool if there was just one game that went “old school” and named itself purely and one-wordedly for a notable crop associated with the city in which the game is to be played. And if the bowl committee choosing to go that route happened to be Boise’s, well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out with which vegetable they should roll. And, if the Idahonians wanted to take it one step further, I’d even grant them an exemption to sell the game off to a major sponsor, if, and only if, they sold it to one of America’s major sofa manufacturers. Thus would be born the desperately-needed Couch Potato Bowl.

But allow me to bestow upon this contest the name it really deserves: The MCS Computers PUNISHMENT Bowl. Miami is being punished for a rotten (for them) 6-6 season, with most of their highlights coming during a helmet-swinging brawl in its game against the Smokin’ Cubans of Castro State. Therefore, their sentence—bowl game in Spudville. Enjoy your New Year’s Eve up there, fellas. The Wolf Pack is obviously being taken to the woodshed and switched across the back of the thighs because of its season-ending meltdown against Boise State. You tryin’ to tell me this is a coincidence? The message to all Pack players: Barf all over your shoes against BSU in front of a sold out Mackay Stadium and a national television audience, and your sentence will be that bowl game in Boise.