Our Bowl

Points to be made here, right up top:
Point 1:
Not a particularly "glamorous" location OR match-up--and for us at least, BESIDE the point: Sure, a brighter spotlight on a more compelling national stage would have been to throw us up against UCF, but no picnic...WHOMEVER drawn from the SEC for that one was in a "much-to-lose"/"little-to-gain" situation: More fun for everyone watching than the team/program put in that situation. (See the aftermath, no MATTER the actual result...and yeah, I'll be rooting for LSU this time--like everyone ELSE in the SEC and UNLIKE most of the rest of the country...FUCK 'em.)
Point 2:
And ANYWAY, we've got other, more important-to-our-future business to attend to in our game. I think that even beyond the extra general work our whole team gets, plus its attendant benefits on the national recruiting scene, this is a very real and important chance for Mullen to see what he's got at QB going into spring and beyond. Look for Emory to get some real and meaningful inclusion.
Point 3:
Do NOT underestimate the importance of the above being tested in this particular context, against this particular team: a strong defensive squad (still statistically ranked "#1 D" even after being stung for 62 points against their rival --which if anything shows what a truly elite QB can do--against ANYONE)...and anyway, it's about time we BEAT these guys! Look at the difference Coaching made on one team in the course of one year. Here's a chance to MEASURE ourselves directly, in the only way that ultimately really matters.
Point 4:
I've got that "bad feeling" again for this one--but if there's one (more) thing I've learned in the course of this truly "transitional" season it is that there really ISN'T much connection between my superstitious "feelings" and what will in fact HAPPEN--it just makes it all somehow more nerve-wracking, less FUN.
And maybe that's one of the best things Coach Dan has brought back to us all here: A sense of adventure, "Plan, prepare, practice, then go out there and LET IT FLY!!!"

Point of order: the Peach Bowl is a New Year's Six Bowl, and is one of the oldest and most lucrative bowl games. The payout of $4M is the same as the Sugar Bowl. The game is in Atlanta, which means there will be a large Gator presence there.

It would be an affront to college football to allow UCF into the big boy club based on two good years of football in a cupcake conference. I wanted Michigan, Penn State, or any other historical power.

The only good thing that could have come out of playing UCF would have been the opportunity to play three Sunshine State powers in a row, with FSU and Miami being relevant, historical powers.

Note that 50% of the top 8 producers of touchdowns in the SEC were coached by Dan Mullen.

Escambia94 said:

Point of order: the Peach Bowl is a New Year's Six Bowl, and is one of the oldest and most lucrative bowl games. The payout of $4M is the same as the Sugar Bowl. The game is in Atlanta, which means there will be a large Gator presence there.

It would be an affront to college football to allow UCF into the big boy club based on two good years of football in a cupcake conference. I wanted Michigan, Penn State, or any other historical power.

The only good thing that could have come out of playing UCF would have been the opportunity to play three Sunshine State powers in a row, with FSU and Miami being relevant, historical powers.

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I wanted Ohio State, whoop Meyer's @$$

Leakfan12 said:

I wanted Ohio State, whoop Meyer's @$$

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Silly me. I also had them on my list. I guess my "cranial cysts" got in the way of me remembering.

Escambia94 said:

Point of order: the Peach Bowl is a New Year's Six Bowl, and is one of the oldest and most lucrative bowl games. The payout of $4M is the same as the Sugar Bowl. The game is in Atlanta, which means there will be a large Gator presence there.

It would be an affront to college football to allow UCF into the big boy club based on two good years of football in a cupcake conference. I wanted Michigan, Penn State, or any other historical power.

The only good thing that could have come out of playing UCF would have been the opportunity to play three Sunshine State powers in a row, with FSU and Miami being relevant, historical powers.

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I wasn't interested in playing 'em either--but a lotta people out there wanna see this "downtrodden underdog" somehow embarrass someone, ANYONE from the Big Bad ol' SEC...The Florida GATORS against what is, in the end the "Directional Florida Played-NOBODIES", in a game that woulda been a LET DOWN for us and presumably hard to get UP for was just the kind of setup the haters secretly wanna see...Instead, this one (The Peach, vs UM) is MUCH more fitting in every way--but neither a likely "shoot out" (so popular nowadays at every level) nor a particular "important" matchup to those outside our respective programs...and my comments focus mainly on how WE see it, and what WE were and/or are looking for now.

Leakfan12 said:

I wanted Ohio State, whoop Meyer's @$$

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Yeah--THAT one woulda satisfied BOTH the "big matchup" criteria AND in support of all the other stuff we look to gain in the coming weeks. It SEEMED like the "no brainer" I thought maybe these TV fools couldn't even screw up. Personally, I was hoping to either play them ANYWHERE--or (failing that) to meet Texas in the Sugar Bowl (that woulda been BIG around here--and I was already looking into arrangements to GO to that one, hsd it happened.
As a game, I hope our fans in N. Fla. DO show up IN FORCE... Not really up for that drive, myself--and not for that particular match up, to be honest. I admit again that I have no real "FEEL" for how it will turn out; only the common idea that it will likely be a low-scoring, bang it out affair--where a QB with a solid, coupla TD-pass game will lead his team to an important, end this one/start The NEXT ONE Season.
Wouldn't miss it for the world!

DRU2012 said:

I wasn't interested in playing 'em either--but a lotta people out there wanna see this "downtrodden underdog" somehow embarrass someone, ANYONE from the Big Bad ol' SEC...The Florida GATORS against what is, in the end the "Directional Florida Played-NOBODIES", in a game that woulda been a LET DOWN for us and presumably hard to get UP for was just the kind of setup the haters secretly wanna see...Instead, this one (The Peach, vs UM) is MUCH more fitting in every way--but neither a likely "shoot out" (so popular nowadays at every level) nor a particular "important" matchup to those outside our respective programs...and my comments focus mainly on how WE see it, and what WE were and/or are looking for now.

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It's business. Teams like Florida, Penn State, and Michigan are guaranteed to generate revenue even in down years. UCF is not a guarantee.

Look at the fan bases. Florida, Penn State, and Michigan. Those are three of the top 15 alumni bases in America with over 400,000 living alumni each! Each has a football stadium that holds 80,000 fans after a losing season. Each has a million fans watching their games on TV. Each has filled bowl games with 20,000 to 30,000 fans, even in down years.

Compare that to UCF. Their stadium barely holds 40,000 after expansion. They claim an alumni base of 280,000, but a large portion of that base (approximately 150,000) remains in the Orlando or Atlanta areas, whereas Florida, Penn State, and Michigan might have 150,000 living in Texas, California, New York, and Virginia alone!

Florida playing against UCF in a bowl game hurts revenue prospects. For me as a Gator living in California and Texas, I would not fly anywhere to watch Florida play UCF. I would consider flying out to watch Florida play a real school with a real football team.

Escambia94 said:

It's business. Teams like Florida, Penn State, and Michigan are guaranteed to generate revenue even in down years. UCF is not a guarantee.

Look at the fan bases. Florida, Penn State, and Michigan. Those are three of the top 15 alumni bases in America with over 400,000 living alumni each! Each has a football stadium that holds 80,000 fans after a losing season. Each has a million fans watching their games on TV. Each has filled bowl games with 20,000 to 30,000 fans, even in down years.

Compare that to UCF. Their stadium barely holds 40,000 after expansion. They claim an alumni base of 280,000, but a large portion of that base (approximately 150,000) remains in the Orlando or Atlanta areas, whereas Florida, Penn State, and Michigan might have 150,000 living in Texas, California, New York, and Virginia alone!

Florida playing against UCF in a bowl game hurts revenue prospects. For me as a Gator living in California and Texas, I would not fly anywhere to watch Florida play UCF. I would consider flying out to watch Florida play a real school with a real football team.

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Fine: It's a "BUSINESS DECISION" now, in every way. But does that explain or EXCUSE the resulting BS inundating and flowing from every resulting crack in what seems now a deeply flawed system on a wrong road? As I have put it elsewhere, "the Clowns are running the circus" now--the inmates (excuse me, "sports journalists") are running the asylum.
I was still a bit concerned that the aforementioned national interest generated by the very real and growing "anti-SEC bias" might play an even larger role in the "business considerations" you refer to. But this way they got it going BOTH ways--big name matchup in the Peach, and UCF up against a high-profile SEC team in the Fiesta...
BUT: As for the Bowls themselves and their relative prestige, fact is ORIGINALLY and for many years it was the Big Three: Rose, Sugar and COTTON, with their various "traditional conference affiliations" --then Fiesta wedged into the mix later in the 20th century, then the Cotton's actual relative slow fade in relevance through the late-millenial reshuffling of conference affiliations and various experiments with settling the "National Championship" question--and NOW a NEW ordering/history rewrite that has them all in a new hierarchy that is being presented as some sort of "Traditional Reality" that has "ALWAYS been that way" when in fact it really HAS NOT!
Sorry, but The Peach Bowl was NOT a major Bowl when I was a kid, NOT among those "Big Three", anyway, but rather in "the next Tier" of "regional reward for decent year"-type of percieved importance--but irrelevant from the main end-of-season ranking action (sort of like "The New Years Six" NOW)...
In retrospect, there were all kinds of "warning signs" over the years, but the door was probably swung WIDE open with that absurd "artificial decision" that one year in the 80s (was it '84?) when "the mythical Nat'l Championship" was awarded to a Brigham YOUNG squad based on (not much better than modern-UCF's record OR level of weekly competition, AND) a victory IN THE HOLIDAY BOWL, of all things--and DAYS before New Year's and the "traditional Big Three" Games were actually even played.
But whatever the reasons reached in subsequent discussion, things are all different now--and a Bowl's, a game's, a TEAM'S "importance" is by now whatever "the media" and "broadcast journalist pack" somehow seemingly decide/agree to SAY it is...Over and over and OVER, until it hangs above the water cooler for any ignoramus to recite as supposed "informed-fact".
I'M still getting used to a lot of this myself--some of the latest "accepted facts" have somehow been determined and lodged in the public consciousness practically overnight, it seems like to ME, anyway. But my resistance to such "quick rewrites" of history and the resulting modern "pronounced realities" is, as I understand it, a sign of my "inflexibility as a sign of age"! I guess soon I'll be that guy yelling at the kids running onto his property while playing and keeping their ball when it bounces into his fenced yard. So far, no--but I am so disgusted and impatient with the damn fools who are CREATING this world, the idiots on (for example) "SEC Now" each morning making the most ridiculous claims, declarations and assumptions that supposedly now RULE college football...
I mean it...The season is winding down:
At the very time that I would normally be sucking down every bit of SEC news I could find out there each morning with my coffee (storing it up inside for the long draught of new action until the Spring Game--whatever they are calling it at that point), instead I am QUICKLY switching away in disgust and frustration rather than being forced to bear another moment of the constant stream of lies, misconceptions and just plain newly-invented BULLSHIT that is poured onto/into us all now on a daily basis.

Escambia94 said:

Code:

1) Tim Tebow Florida 145
2) Aaron Murray UGA 137
3) Danny Wuerffel Florida 122
4) Dak Prescott Miss St. 114
5) Drew Lock Mizzou 106
6) Chris Leak UF 101
7) Peyton Manning UT 101
8) Nick Fitzgerald Miss St. 99
9) Johnny Manziel TAMU 93
10) Jared Lorenzen UK 90

Note that 50% of the top 8 producers of touchdowns in the SEC were coached by Dan Mullen.

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This one says A LOT of things...
Nice pick to dig out and boil it all down to, though!