Bowl Musings

The college football bowl season mercifully comes to an end this week. Even this avid pigskin fan is overwhelmed by thirty plus games over the past fortnight. As the color and pageantry of Bowl Season 2010 fades into history, three items stick in my mind:

1. Marching band uniforms must evolve from Napoleonic tunics with bucket hats topped by a feather plume. Nine of ten bands resemble the Mexican Army marching on the Alamo. Let's get into the 21st century, people! Nobody wears spats anymore. Stanford's band has no uniform at all. The kids either wear what they would to class or dress in costume. This Stanfordian free-thinking resulted in Hewlett-Packard and Google which is good and a tree for a mascot which is not so good.

2. The University of Oregon recruits and gives scholarships to its cheerleaders. No longer is a role in the latest direct-to-video incarnation of "Bring It On" the sole career dream for high school yell queen. With great power (or a scholarship) comes great responsibility though. In the Rose Bowl, the Oregon "cheerios" featured the bare midriff look. Their Ohio State counterparts went with the traditional mid-western sensibility of sweater and pleated skirt. Develop that dreaded "belly roll" as part of the "Freshman 15" and lose your scholarship at Oregon! Gain a few pounds after a semester of keggers and cafeteria food at Ohio State and the sweater hides all.

3. Starting football players are "introduced" with a quick scrawl on the TV screen listing name, position, class year, and home town. As expected, most players representing the University of Florida come from Florida, Ohio Staters from Ohio, etc. Then, there's Boise State. Idaho is not exactly California when it comes to putting out high school gridiron phenoms. To fill thir roster, Boise's coaching staff recruited successfully in the Golden State. "Hey, you want to see snow and check out where Brokeback Mountain was filmed? Come to Boise" apparently worked. What surprised me was Boise's best defensive back was a native of Piscataway, NJ. What would bring a kid from North Jersey to the wilds of Idaho? "OK, you've seen snow. Come to Boise, son, and I'll guarantee you all the potatoes you can eat. Try finding straight-out-of-the-ground tubers in Piscataway!"