WTF ESPN? This is what they think of the Gator Bowl matchup.

[GhostOfJackie]

[h=4]TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (Blog)[/h]Northwestern and Mississippi State will play in the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. on New Year's Day.
The Wildcats (9-3) and Bulldogs (8-4) accepted invitations Sunday, giving the bowl a less-than-marquee matchup. The Gator Bowl pitted Florida and Ohio State last season, an intriguing matchup that featured Urban Meyer's former team against his future team.
This time, the bowl wasn't nearly as fortunate.
Sure, Northwestern is playing on New Year's Day for the third time in four years. But the Wildcats aren't known for filling stadiums. And Mississippi State is back in Jacksonville for the second time in three years. In 2010, coach Dan Mullen and the Bulldogs were one of the surprises of the Southeastern Conference. This time, though, MSU comes in having lost four its last five games.


Why do they choose to single out this bowl game and not any of the other ones?

 

[tenureplan]

Already read about this on the NU page

It's the AP write up

 

[GhostOfJackie]

I didn't post the summary of the remainder of the bowls. I'm trying to find the link to post. They simply picked one bowl out of the entire line up to completely trash. It was the Gator Bowl. Sure, the game does not match up iconic Ohio State and Florida, but it's not a bad match up at all.

 

[FISHDAWG]

because they believe N. Illinois vs Florida State is the marquis match up **

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Can you refute either of the bolded comments?

 

[was21]

pretty accurate assessment

 

[Dawg1976]

Not surprising at all. We limped in and don't have any signature wins. We can only hope Mullen can get the guys to play at a high level and make it an exciting game. And get a win in the process.

 

[Railin Jemmye]

We are never going to garner headlines until we force it upon them......

being an ag school, in a looked down upon state, with a rival who cares more about holding us down than anything else, we're going to have to bust through doors and take our attention.

 

[gptdawg]

Another article I read in today's Sun Herald said basically the same thing but added something like " both teams have little or no national prominence ". ouch.

 

[Xenomorph]

It's more troubling that they're right than that they're talking about it. *

*

 

[maroonmania]

TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (Blog)

Northwestern and Mississippi State will play in the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. on New Year's Day.
The Wildcats (9-3) and Bulldogs (8-4) accepted invitations Sunday, giving the bowl a less-than-marquee matchup. The Gator Bowl pitted Florida and Ohio State last season, an intriguing matchup that featured Urban Meyer's former team against his future team.
This time, the bowl wasn't nearly as fortunate.
Sure, Northwestern is playing on New Year's Day for the third time in four years. But the Wildcats aren't known for filling stadiums. And Mississippi State is back in Jacksonville for the second time in three years. In 2010, coach Dan Mullen and the Bulldogs were one of the surprises of the Southeastern Conference. This time, though, MSU comes in having lost four its last five games.


Why do they choose to single out this bowl game and not any of the other ones?

Well, all I'll say is that the ONLY thing intriguing about that 6-6 Florida team last year was maybe the name on the side of the helmet. A 6-6 team that played in the East last year was a pretty worthless accomplishment making our 8-4 look superlative.

 

[Godfrey]

Part of it is last year's storyline

The Meyer Bowl, and two national championship programs. Yes, the attendance and interest will be down, but that's more to do with the fact NU doesn't sell out home games in Evanston and UF was a local power program that filled the place up last year. Also, Ohio State has more bandwagon fans than the New York Yankees...

 

[InaccuratePredictionsDawg]

Northwestern hasn't won a bowl sine 1948...

...winless in bowl games for 64 years (1-9 historically), playing a Miss. State squad they can definitely beat. That is your compelling story line for this year's Gator Bowl. Provided you want to find the compelling story line & not be a dick.

 

[MedDawg]

Urban Meyer or not....

TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (Blog)

Northwestern and Mississippi State will play in the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. on New Year's Day.
The Wildcats (9-3) and Bulldogs (8-4) accepted invitations Sunday, giving the bowl a less-than-marquee matchup. The Gator Bowl pitted Florida and Ohio State last season, an intriguing matchup that featured Urban Meyer's former team against his future team.
This time, the bowl wasn't nearly as fortunate.
Sure, Northwestern is playing on New Year's Day for the third time in four years. But the Wildcats aren't known for filling stadiums. And Mississippi State is back in Jacksonville for the second time in three years. In 2010, coach Dan Mullen and the Bulldogs were one of the surprises of the Southeastern Conference. This time, though, MSU comes in having lost four its last five games.


Why do they choose to single out this bowl game and not any of the other ones?

Florida was 6-6 and had lost 6 of their last 8 games, and Ohio State was also only 6-6 and had lost 3 straight going into the Gator Bowl, yet they ignored that and mentioned our losing 4 of 5.

 

[thunderclap]

Some of you underestimate getting your *** kicked on ESPN most of November.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

What does being an ag school have to do with anything?

 

[DerHntr]

Some of you underestimate getting your *** kicked on ESPN most of November.

And add to that getting your *** kicked while having a quality ranking at the same time. I didn't hear much about our team from people at work or anywhere else around here until Bama smoked us with an 11 ranking, then A&M, and then LSU. All of the sudden they knew all about our team (and so did we unfortunately).

 

[jakldawg]

I think the AP is trying to subtly troll people with these write-ups.
Here's one for the championship game.
On one side, a blossoming dynasty from the college football capital of the Deep South.
On the other, the sport's most famous team, trying to reclaim its place among the elite.
(vomit)

and now my slightly-unrelated rant:
Remember, the best way to rank college teams is solely by numbers of fans who will tune into the game. By this failproof logic, an OSU-Florida matchup in ANY bowl is a dream-come-true, regardless of things like "records." Besides, based on how this season turned out, we can only conclude that the Buckeyes CHOSE to play in the Gator bowl instead of foolishly turning down such a dream matchup for the pursuit of some sort of "national championship" the following year.
These sorts of people undoubtedly saw the Fiesta Bowl lineup and thought "Gross. Who the hell wants to watch THAT? Can we just put Texas and Michigan here instead of these nobodies?"

 

[Lee Corso]

I guess it'll have to be billed as Peavey versus Heston to gain interest.

"Get your hands off my guitar, you dirty ape."