Christmas Day is for football, too! And so is the day after Christmas, if you count the Quick Lane Bowl as football.
It’s Christmas Eve, which can only mean one thing: Ten NFL games including one tonight!
Tomorrow is Christmas Day. Which can only mean one thing: Three more NFL games, from noon through late at night!
Then comes Dec. 26. Which can only mean one thing: Detroit’s Quick Lane bowl between Bowling Green and 5-7 Minnesota!
<!–
–>
#placement_665573_0_i{width:100%;margin:0 auto;}
That game in Detroit is a reward for the way the Gophers tricked Iowa’s Cooper DeJean into making an invalid fair-catch signal. Minnesota is a clever crew. Getting into a bowl with a 5-7 record? No one else found a way to pull that off.
Iowa State will play Memphis in Memphis at Friday’s Liberty Bowl. Which is a pretty good deal for Memphis beer-distributors.
I covered the 2017 Iowa State-Memphis Liberty Bowl. If you hadn’t known otherwise in the days leading up to the contest, you’d have thought it was a Cyclones home game.
Anyway, about that DeJean deal: If his touchdown on the punt return hadn’t been disallowed, the Hawkeyes probably would have won that game and finished the regular-season 11-2 instead of 10-3. Which means they would have won the Big Ten West and earned an invitation to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.
Memphis has good music and good food. Orlando has good weather.
Both are to Pasadena what horseradish is to gingerbread men.
Which reminds me that long ago I knew a woman who said she had briefly dated Bernie Kosar. That former NFL quarterback hung out with Taylor Swift at the Oct. 22 Chiefs game in Kansas City. So basically, I’m in Tay Tay’s inner circle. Even though I can’t name one of her songs.
Just kidding. “Anti-Hero” is my jam.
Did you hear my covert narcissism
I disguise as altruism?
Like some kind of congressman
(Tale as old as time)
Taylor Swift. It’s as if I had a twin.
What were we talking about? Ah yes, next Monday’s Cheez-It Citrus Bowl, the name that’s a recipe for a gastrointestinal disorder.
It’s Iowa and Tennessee in Orlando. Guidebook author and travel TV host Rick Steves once said “My mission is to inspire and equip Americans to venture beyond Orlando.”
Fear of traveling abroad, Steves said, “is for people who don’t get out very much.”
Since they don’t play bowl games in Marseille or Milan, Orlando must suffice. The Hawkeyes are practicing this week at Windermere High School in Lake Butler, Fla. The Windermere Wolverines went 3-7 this season. A bad omen for the Hawkeyes? Not at all.
That’s because Tennessee is practicing at Celebration High in Celebration, Fla. The Celebration Storm went 1-9 this year, getting outscored 391-47.
Getting back to the Quick Lane Bowl. Is it any worse than the Orange Bowl? That game pairs 13-0 Florida State with 12-1 Georgia and should have been a colossal clash, but Florida State is all mad about not going to the playoffs.
So, the school is now suing the Atlantic Coast Conference to break out of its contract with the league that extends through 2036. And, it’s top three receivers, No. 1 running back and top quarterback-sacker are skipping the Orange Bowl.
That’s not the Christmas spirit.
But I kid the bowls. How can you not love the Wasabi Fenway Bowl. Wasabi is a Japanese green paste. It has vinegar, mustard and whatnot. It’s a condiment for sushi. Except the Wasabi that sponsors the bowl is an online storage provider.
From the Wasabi Bowl’s website: “We’re not just about touchdowns; we’re about touchlines, bringing together fans from all walks of life to cheer for something greater than the game itself.”
You’d find more truth by staring into a dish of spicy green paste.
Ahh, Christmas Eve. When we all come together as families and bask in the warm glow of NFL Network bringing us the joyous sights and sounds of defensive ends bruising quarterbacks’ ribs.
OK, let’s end with some sappy sentimentality. As Taylor Swift or someone wrote:
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
Comments: (319) 398-8440; [email protected]