College football wraps up its 2014/2015 football season with a frenzy of bowl games the next several weeks. While there are a few important games coming up, lots of this just seems silly. For example, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl game was played this past Saturday (Air Force 38 over Western Michigan 24). This name probably should be hyphenated: The Famous-Idaho-Potato Bowl.
The game was played in Boise at Albertson's Stadium (Boise State University), which has a capacity for 37,000 fans. (A rainy day kept attendance way down this year, with the Idaho Statesman reporting that it appeared there were fewer than 9,000 hardy fans sitting in the stands.) The stadium's real claim to fame is its blue (Albertson's blue) artificial turf (below). The Potato Bowl began back in 1997; before that it was known as The Humanitarian Bowl.
Typical payout to the universities sending teams to play in this game has been $325,000. Since we tax payers support the USAF team, it was probably easy for USAF Academy management to decide to head off to Boise. But it's likely that the only way they could have turned a profit for us "stockholders" would have been if they had traveled via USAF blue bus (below) and stayed at the bachelor quarters on Mountain Home Air Force Base south of Boise. As for Western Michigan (Kalamazoo, Michigan) it seems likely that the Potato Bowl was a losing venture in more ways than one. Beware faculty, you may find lumps of coal in your Christmas bonus stockings.
Many other Silly Bowl games are in the pipeline this Holiday Season.
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