Every year during bowl season, I'm in a foul mood. I hate the system. The games (minus the 2007 Fiesta Bowl) suck because they are always characterized by sloppy play between teams who haven't faced live competition in a month and whose players spend the week leading up to the game sneaking out past curfew. Meanwhile, college football automatons flood my Twitter feed with orgasmic excitement about the match-ups of teams who could give a crap about whether they win or lose these games.
Sooner fans generally inform me that my opinion is flavored by the Cowboys always playing in what they refer to as a "dot com" bowl. Basically, OSU plays in a lesser bowl named after a sponsor instead something tradition rich. That isn't the case this year. The Cowboys are playing in the Fiesta Bowl while the Sooners are at the Insight.com Bowl and I'm only slightly more happy for reasons having nothing to do with the game. (A bump in program prestige that should assist in recruiting pleases me.)
That being said, I do watch one bowl game every year. This year, for the first time since my self imposed boycott, it will be a BCS bowl game. After the jump, I will provide you with everything you need to know about this game.
Who?
Oklahoma State the number 3 ranked team by the bogus BCS standings, will play the Stanford Cardinal, who are #4 based on the same system.
When?
Monday. Kickoff is slated for around 7:30, which means there might be some football by 8:00. With commercial breaks, the game should end around 1:30 am.
What do you need to know about the Cowboys?
Anything you need to know, you should know already. They feature college football's greatest offense and probably the most underrated defense in the game. You want to argue either of those points? Don't waste your time. Locally, the topic has been discussed ad nauseum and you will not add anything new.
What do you need to know about the Cardinal?
Here is where most of us could use some data. Unfortunately, like most people who vote in the media and coaches polls that determine who plays in the BCS, I only know stuff about teams in my region and I only watch the SportsCenter highlights of everyone else. I do know that Stanford features the expected first pick in the upcoming NFL draft (quarterback Andrew Luck) and I did watch their games against USC (where they played like crap most of the game before scoring two touchdowns late in the 4th quarter before winning in overtime) and Oregon (where they sucked from beginning to end).
Of course, football is secondary to the pomp of the bowl experience. What Stanford brings to that is a band that doesn't know anything about football, John Elway on the sidelines, a mascot that is a walking tree, and most importantly, their cheerleaders look like this:
Just out of curiosity, what does the O-State Cheer squad look like?
Now, if you aren't ready for some football, I don't think you ever will be.
