ALTOONA, Pa. -- I have always loved bowl season. Great matchups. Different opponents. Lots on the line, including bragging rights.
College football's regular season is awesome, and then we've always been able to cap it off with a lot of cool and meaningful games in the bowls.
But honestly, does anyone feel that way anymore?
For me, you can still get great matchups in bowl games. Take the Outback Bowl, for instance, between Penn State and Arkansas. It's a cool matchup between two programs that have never played before, and of course for me personally, it's neat because I'm from Arkansas and have covered Penn State for many years.
But let's be honest here.
It is NOT a meaningful game.
And as for bragging rights? Maybe trying to determine if the Big Ten or SEC is the better conference? I mean, yeah, historically we would have said that, but that story line feels forced nowadays.
I truly do want to love college bowl season. Because at 48 years old, all of this has been a big part of my life as a sports fan and as a sportswriter, and this time of year has always felt like a lot of fun.
So again, I ask: Does anyone feel that way anymore?
We have entered a new era of college football with so many players opting out of bowl games. So far, 67 players have decided to skip their bowl game, and you can see the entire list and reasons why with this tracker.
A bunch of the players who opted out are preparing for the NFL draft, many have transferred and some are dealing with injuries.
One Penn State player -- linebacker Brandon Smith -- has opted out so far, but others are expected to as well, including perhaps wide receiver Jahan Dotson, safety Jaquan Brisker and/or defensive end Arnold Ebiketie. Standout Arkansas recevier Treylon Burks also will skip the Outback Bowl.
The two biggest names who have opted out are Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett and Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker III, with neither playing in the Peach Bowl. That's a prestigious New Year's Six Bowl, but even that wasn't enough for two of the top six Heisman candidates to play in the bowl.
All of this begs the question: If so many players don't care about the bowl game, then why should fans?
The players are looking out for their best interests, and they have every right to do so. As I've written already, someone like Pickett has millions of dollars at stake as a first-round draft pick, and there's really no reason for him to risk that for anything short of a playoff game. And as for Walker, hey, there's really no reason for ANY running back who's about to turn pro to play in a bowl game, because the risk of injury is higher at that position than any other.
Even for the players who are in the bowl games, motivation is a much bigger factor than it's ever been. These games used to represent trying to end one season on a strong note so it serves as a springboard to the next season. And while that still is the case for many players and many teams, bowl games have come to represent merely a nice road trip and fun time for lots of other players who are just ready to get the season over with.
You see it in a whole bunch of games where teams show up and clearly aren't ready to play, and we can all presume part of it is because the players may have checked out early mentally instead of fully preparing themselves for the game. They see teammates opting out or transferring, they may have seen their head coach or assistants leave for other jobs, or they may be considering transferring themselves.
Add all that up, and it's no wonder that motivation can be a concern for bowl games.
Can any of this be fixed? Is it possible to ever get back to the point where bowl games really will matter as much as they used to, with schools such as Penn State flaunting the bowl record as a major source of pride?
Even if you're an eternal optimist, it's hard to answer those questions with a yes.
Bowl games will always be significant when it comes to TV and money. That's because the networks are all looking for "inventory" at this time of year, and the bowl games provide that. The TV money is a huge reason why the bowls themselves can still profit off these games, and the reason why we will always have bowl games, period.
In that sense, yes, the bowls do matter. And will always matter.
They are not meaningless as business entities.
But from the players playing in the games to the fans around the country, the feeling of bowl games being considered special in any way is probably something that may never return. Sure, there will be individual games that do generate such feelings each year, but when you play more than 40 bowls, the bombardment further takes away the feeling that any of them are special.
I asked James Franklin on Friday how much bowl games matter now and if college football can convince the public that bowl games are still significant. Here's his entire answer:
"Yeah, I think obviously that's a challenge right now. You know, I think I did an interview the other day, I don't know whether you listened to it or not, but that was my argument. We're talking about going eight playoff spots or twelve playoff spots. In my mind, you make it as big as possible.
"Once we expand the playoffs, in my opinion, we're going to continue to deemphasis those other bowl games. To me, if we're going to expand the playoffs, we should expand it as big as we possibly can to allow more teams the opportunity to play for the title, but also to be able to protect those bowl games by including them in that process as much as possible.
"Your point is a fair one. Every time I turn on my phone there is someone opting out from what we would all consider people that have been watching college football and loving college football for a long time big time, significant bowl games where players aren't playing in them.
"And this goes all the way back. I think it started to get maybe some national headlines I think maybe (Christian) McCaffrey opted out at Stanford. That's the first one that jumps into my mind, if I'm right there. But there has obviously been others."
Franklin was right about McCaffrey being one of first stars to skip a bowl game, doing so in 2016 by skipping the Sun Bowl. He got heavily criticized by many people at the time, including me, as I took him to task on my radio show the day the news broke.
But now, considering all the financial things at stake and all the other chaos that seems to be happening around college football each December, it's become totally understandable why players would opt out of these games. It's gone from being a surprise to being fully expected, all in only five years.
Give it another five or 10 years, and we will see massive numbers of players deciding to skip these games. Unless, that is, the system changes and allows all of the players to be paid handsomely for playing in a bowl game as an enticement. Could that happen? Sure, but it would be tricky logistically because of rules regarding amateurs and Title IX implications.
We're still very early on in the bowl season, and there will be some great games played over the next couple of weeks. Let's hope so anyway.
Still, the feeling of bowl season being special is almost definitely a thing of the past. And that makes me sad, since it feels like yet another wonderful part of sports that is being lost and will never be regained.
