Junket to Piscataway

The Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Gator Bowl, the Sun Bowl -- all in town to watch Rutgers play football....Representatives from six bowl games were hosted by athletic administrators over the past couple of days.

The atmoshpere at the Louisville V. Rutgers game was electric as anyone in their living room watching the game could tell. Yet for some reason officals from the above bowls and several others were in attendence. What was the reason for the trip?

Do they care about seeing the campus? Maybe sit in on a class or two? Check out the facilities? Hear from the fans? Tailgate in the parking lot?

If you were running a bowl what you want to know? Three simple things: Will your fans travel? Will you deliver TV ratings? Given your reputation and poll posatition do you bring prestige to my game? All of which can be answered without a visit to a game. The first two in the case of Rutgers can be answered by looking at last years Insight Bowl TV ratings and ticket sales. The last is a judgement call and will depend on the remaining game.

An interesting a disheartening comment towards the end of the article, "This is a very good football team. CBS would like to have them; they're a great story." Ah, that new trend in football where there is a need to have some kind of story to tell. We cannot rely on the entertainment value of the game on the field rather a subplot to hook in the causual viewer. Maybe they could paint ther Scarlet Knights as the Charlie Brown of college football and endlessly show a clip of Lucy pulling the ball away. And then somtimes a cigar is just a cigar.