Bowl season is most definitely upon us. Once more, unsuspecting Chick-fil-A customers will discover that, while the restaurant proudly sponsors Peach Bowls, it still doesn’t sell them. Viewers will discover just how crucial the Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl might be. And, after all the commercial bombardment, Americans everywhere will discover one final insight — and hopefully, one final Insight.com Bowl.

Bowl season is awful. Meaningless games. Boring matchups. Sponsorship of everything from halftime shows to postgame riots. It’s all money-driven. This column, in fact, has been purchased with proceeds from the 1997 Fiesta Bowl.

Of course, most who support a college football playoff system have heard the complaints before. I know, it’s a tired rant. So I’ll drop it — and find something else to complain about.

—Two years ago, Dee Brown and James Mungro split time in the backfield for a mediocre Syracuse football team. Against some considerable odds, both players pulled a Rudy and worked their way onto NFL rosters. Both waited as backups. Now, both have had 100-yard rushing games this season.

Brown accomplished the feat Sunday, helping the Carolina Panthers upset Cleveland. Meanwhile, Mungro, playing for the AFC-leading Indianapolis Colts, rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns in a Week 10 win over Philadelphia. Kudos to the Syracuse grads.

If only Marvin Harrison and Donovan McNabb could get their act together.

—Here are my fashion pet peeves, and take my words seriously, because sports writers are known for their impeccable fashion and collecting J.Crew catalogs.

Item No. 1: You shouldn’t be allowed to start a college career if you still have a backpack with your initials on it.

Item No. 2: I’m fed up with sports caps. They’ve gone downhill faster than Alberto Tomba could’ve ever dreamed. These days, it’s damn near impossible to find a hat without some kind of gaudy lightning bolt or busy front-to-back gradient. Jeez, just keep it simple, New Era.

Item No. 3: Judging by its T-shirts, Abercrombie & Fitch has its own full-contact, coed football league. Forget Rhode Island. I think Syracuse has found its competition.

—Anyone who’s seen Penn State’s Larry Johnson run this season knows that the bruising tailback deserves the Heisman Trophy. Anyone who’s seen Penn State’s Joe Paterno’s poor behavior this season knows that the 75-year-old coach deserves a forced retirement.

—Questions that I still can’t answer: How come football officials never throw the ball overhand? Who actually watches Thanksgiving parades? At what age do men suddenly obtain the impudence — or should I say impotence — to shamelessly converse in gym locker rooms while standing entirely unclothed?

—Is this supposed to be college football’s exciting stretch run? Assuming Miami wins its final game, there is no reason to care about any other contest being played this season.

Conference championships. Rivalry matchups. Bowl games. They’re all irrelevant. It would be far different, say, if teams like Colorado, Oklahoma and Washington State were all scraping to be the final team in an eight-school postseason playoff.

Wait, did I say I was done with that rant?

—Time to demonstrate the journalistic faux pas of misleading statistics: In its men’s basketball history, SU has a combined 100 losses against Canisius, Colgate and Cornell. During that same time, the Orangemen have lost 87 times to Connecticut, Georgetown and Pittsburgh.

—Just a little note to all of SU’s clich-dropping athletes: Puh-leeze, you are not fooling us. We don’t buy it. Listen, we’ve played sports before. We hung up our cleats after high school, perhaps, but we haven’t hung up our PS2 controllers. And do we respect our opponents? Hell no. Do we put the team above ourselves? Hell no. Do we take it one game at a time? Not if there’s a chance for double or nothing.

—Do you think Nokia Sugar Bowl organizers would rather have a Florida State-Arkansas matchup (if the Hogs upset Georgia this week) or a national quarterfinal game between Miami and Iowa?

Or better yet, how about a compromise? How about an Abercrombie Bowl? Full contact, of course.

Chico Harlan is a staff writer at The Daily Orange, where his rants appeared every tuesday. rest assured, we won’t publish them anymore. E-mail him at apharlan@syr.edu.

Published on December 2, 2002 at 12:00 pm