Bowled over

Well, this is dismaying. Or at least it is to those of us who still pine for the days of the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl, the single greatest bowl game ever devised by man.

What's that you say? There isn't a those-of-us who pine for that?

Well, all the Blob has to say about that is, y'all got no soul. I mean, if the NCAA's decided 41 bowl games are enough for awhile, what reason is there for your Styrofoam Tech Fightin' Widgets to even take the field this fall for their legendary coach, Willard "5-7" Slobberknocker?

I mean, the way things were trending, Coach Slobberknocker's signature season would have gotten the Fightin' Widgets into a bowl game this year, on account of three below-.500 teams got into bowls last year. And not just any bowls, but bowls such as the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and the Sears Craftsman Rock Hammer Bowl, sponsored by Andy Dufresne and Associates, Zihuatanejo, Mexico. 

Only one of which I totally made up.

The rest are all real, which suggests maybe the NCAA finally saw beyond the dollar signs this time, a significant departure for an organization whose vision is always fogged by the bottom line. For the powers-that-be to say "enough" is groundbreaking stuff considering the prevailing opinion, which is that the NCAA not only couldn't spell "enough," it didn't even know how it was pronounced.

Best guess was "more."

But to the surprise of everyone, even the NCAA has limits when it comes to cashing in on its unpaid labor. And so there will be no return of Poulan Weed Eaters for at least three years.

No Twizzlers Artificial Coloring Added Bowl. No Velveeta Processed Cheese Product Bowl. No They're Always After Me Lucky Charms Leprechaun Bowl, whose ingenious business model -- invite Notre Dame every year -- would no doubt be squelched by Notre Dame's preference for a bowl with some real prestige.

Like, say, the Cure Frostbite Today Extremities Bowl in Minot, North Dakota.

Gonna miss that one.