Flush With Bowl Ideas

Sure, remember the Alamo, but also don't forget your Capital One card, because that International flight for your Holiday in the Music City or Las Vegas will mean Independence from your money as you feast on Chick fil-A and Papa Johns pizza. I won't incorporate every one of the 34 NCAA bowl games into this entry, but everyone knows college football's postseason is larded with meaningless contests. Already, more than half the Division I schools (or whatever they're referred to now) get affirmation for craptastically mediocre seasons. New this year to fat guys with no lives: the St. Petersburg Bowl and the Congressional Bowl, which doesn't appear to have a website yet. So who says we need a 35th bowl game? (Slowly raising my hand) Me.

There's now talk of Seattle hosting a bowl game at Qwest Field. The hope is it would be a tie-in with the Pac-10, allowing a record 12th team from the conference to make the postseason. Hey, the Huskies need all the help they can get. And let's not forget that Seattle is tradition-rich in this arena. Who can forget that the Seattle Bowl ruled this town for two years earlier this century: in 2001, Georgia Tech bested Stanford, sending Ty Willingham skulking off to South Bend on a losing note. In '02, a stacked Wake Forest club routed Oregon. The following day, UW made its last bowl game to date, losing to Purdue in the Sun Bowl. It's unacceptable that we've been Bowl-less in Seattle for nearly six years.

Seattle needs some athletic civic pride these days following the loss of the Sonics. If backwaters like Mobile, Shreveport and Atlanta can host games, why not Seattle? But first, we're going to need some corporate sponsors. You know, the way the Independence Bowl (in Shreveport, of course) landed a title sponsor in the early '90s to create the best bowl name ever: the Poulan/Weed Eater Independence Bowl.

Luckily, I've been thinking about this and have some ideas for local tie-ins. Wallingford will be a sexy debutante on the college football scene when we introduce The High-Maintenance Bitch Seattle Bowl. Or perhaps one of the region's many microbrews would want to get in the fray to promote its product among college students. The Seattle Bowl Brought To You By The Flying Pig Brewery rolls off the tongue. Cross-promotional jokes about how the Huskies won't make this bowl until porcine creatures take to the skies are also acceptable here. Of course, Seattle is the Emerald City, so why not work that into the title? Oh sorry, that's already been taken.