A Celebration of College Football's Most Embarrassing Bowl Names
By Tim Ryan
Gildan New Mexico Bowl, Dec. 17th
Temple vs. Wyoming
An activewear company no one has ever heard of sponsoring a bowl game no one will ever care about. The perfect marriage of irrelevance. Guessing this delicious slice of history gets a sweet time slot, like 8 am.
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Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Dec. 17th
Ohio vs. Utah State
Playing football at the college level is a pretty special thing. Telling your friends you once played in the “2011 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl” is not. Pretending you never did is completely understandable.
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R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, Dec. 17th
San Diego State vs. Louisiana-Lafayette
R + L Carriers is a freight company with 21,000 tractors and trailers. There won’t even be 21,000 people at this game, but that will hardly be the fault of the sizzling sponsor.
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Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl, Dec. 20th
Florida International vs. Marshall
Beef O’Brady’s? How demeaning. Why not just force the two teams to play in someone’s backyard? After some research, I’ve learned that Beef O’Brady’s considers themselves an Irish Pub yet they do not serve hard liquor. As Newman once said to Jerry after he briefly worked the portly fella’s mail route, you’re a disgrace to the uniform.
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San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, Dec. 21st
TCU vs. Louisiana Tech
This “classic” has become the staple of bowl name absurdity. The only thing that might sound more ridiculous was a movie entitled “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood,” and that was a tongue-in-cheek flick by the Wayans brothers. This is a bowl game with a corporate sponsor who seriously thinks this seven-word bowl name rolls off the tongue like a Dr. J finger-roll.
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AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl, Dec. 26th
Missouri vs. North Carolina
A bowl game named after a vitamin. No really, a bowl game named after a vitamin.
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Little Caesars Bowl, Dec. 27th
Western Michigan vs. Purdue
I’m actually pleased with this one because the presence of Little Caesars likely means they finally managed to outbid Papa John’s, a company that insisted in the past on coining it the “PapaJohns.com Bowl.” Doesn’t get more embarrassing than a bowl game headlined by a pizza joint’s homepage.
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Champs Sports Bowl, Dec. 29th
Florida State vs. Notre Dame
This one is only amusing because Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly was quoted as saying, “a nice way to finish the season to be part of the Champs Sports Bowl.” Sure, he has to say something nice, but he’s obviously lying and probably trashed Tommy Rees’ dorm room after delivering that quote.
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TicketCity Bowl, Jan. 2nd
Houston vs. Penn State
Right here is where we collectively breathe a sigh of relief that companies like “Kids R Us” have yet to dive into the dizzying world of bowl game sponsorship.
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Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl, Jan. 2nd
Ohio State vs. Florida
I can only assume this is Irwin R. Schyster’s latest ambitious venture after years of touring the country with the sole purpose of physically harming tax cheats.
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Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, Dec. 30th
Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest
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BBVA Compass Bowl, Jan. 7th, 1 p.m
SMU vs. Pittsburgh
A mortgage company and a bank. The photo of BBVA Compass in Austin, Texas says it all. This is truly getting tiresome. Can Nintendo please sponsor one of these things and call it the “Nintendo Tecmo Bowl”? The marketing surrounding a bowl game with an engaging name like that would have some serious potential, be fun and, you know, possibly gain some interest.
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Allstate BCS National Championship Game, Jan. 9th
LSU vs. Alabama
This one is a tremendous sponsorship and there are exactly two words that make it as such: Ryan O’Reily.
[Photo via Getty]