A friend of mine, a native Texan, posted this message on Facebook the other day:
If you want to know the extent to which college football has strayed from the primrose path I thought would never end, here’s this year’s Cotton Bowl match up:
1. Neither team from Texas
2. Neither team from the old Southwest Conference.
3. Neither from even the Big 12.
4. Cotton not grown anywhere near these two universities.
5. Game no longer on New Year’s Day.
What’s our sports world coming to?
I feel his pain. The Cotton Bowl matchup this year features the University of Southern California vs. The Ohio State University.
It strikes me that the Cotton Bowl will involve teams that used to play exclusively in the Rose Bowl, which used to invite the champions from the Big 10 to play the champs of the Pac 12.
And … speaking of the Rose Bowl — the game I watch with great interest, given that I grew up on the Pacific Coast — has an, um, interesting matchup as well.
The University of Georgia will play tackle football against the University of Oklahoma. Georgia comes from the Southeastern Conference; Oklahoma hails from the Big 12.
There’s a glimmer of good news to report. At least the Rose Bowl will be played on New Year’s Day.
But I get my friend’s angst over the jumbling of these bowl dates and the matchups that have not a damn thing to do with intercollegiate football tradition.