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HERE ARE YOUR BOWLS TODAY. ENJOY THEM. IN A FEW MONTHS YOU’LL BE SCRAPING YOUR DVR FOR SOMETHING HALF THIS GOOD AND BOUNTIFUL.
Tuesday Bowl Games
| Bowl | Team | Location | Date | Time (ET) / TV | Streaming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowl | Team | Location | Date | Time (ET) / TV | Streaming |
| Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl | Army vs. North Texas | Dallas, TX | Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016 | 12 p.m. / ESPN | WatchESPN |
| Military Bowl | (24) Temple vs. Wake Forest | Annapolis, MD | Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016 | 3:30 p.m. / ESPN | WatchESPN |
| National Funding Holiday Bowl | Minnesota vs. Washington State | San Diego, CA | Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016 | 7 p.m. / ESPN | WatchESPN |
| Motel 6 Cactus Bowl | Boise State vs. Baylor | Phoenix, AZ | Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2016 | 10:15 p.m. / ESPN | WatchESPN |
Zaxby’s Bowl. Nothing honors our armed forces like a rematch with a directional school in a bowl sponsored by fast-food chicken tenders in a decrepit stadium. Heart of Dallas is actually the partially-finished manuscript sequel found in the estate possessions of Joseph Conrad recently. It chronicles one man’s journey through the insipid, garish, sprawling suburbs of Frisco, Plano, Garland, and Irving, until finally he reaches the abandoned fairgrounds and the dark, towering spires of the Cotton Bowl, the gladiatorial arena of last century. This is a rematch for Army and I like their odds against Leach disciple OC Graham Harrell, a ripe candidate for a Kurtz-like feifdom if ever there was one.
Military Bowl. Except this year there’s no military in it. Unless you count the clandestine disinformation operations of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. These guys are James Bond’s CIA buddy who appears in the film for like 5 minutes wearing a polo shirt and then later you hear he’s been eaten by sharks. Temple is the overachieving mid-major who just had their coach hired away by a much bigger program mired neck-deep in a reprehensible scandal. Wake Forest’s worksmanship shines through today and they win 9-5.
National Funding Holiday Bowl. If we’re talking about national funding I can think of a lot more needy areas than the Holiday Bowl (hello again Cotton Bowl), but also a lot less needy (College GameDay music budget). This game features the Cinderella team: that spunky, overachieving Mike Leach-led Washington State squad that made another big splash in the Pac-12 North this year, versus...well, a Minnesota team who needs lessons in basic self-awareness and protesting strategy. Give me Leach all day in good weather on a neutral site. And don’t forget one of the greatest bowl comebacks in history.
Motel 6 Cactus Bowl. Didn’t the Simpsons do this? This is the invented bowl in a bad ‘80s sports movie full of desert salesmen wearing cream-colored suits and thick brown ties milling about in hotel meeting rooms packed with papier-mâché cacti and Hall & Oates cover bands. Anyway, this is the team everyone loves to say is “overrated” (Boise) despite a decade of showing up in big games, vs. the team everyone loves to hate because they’re tone-deaf to the very reprehensible acts they’ve allowed. Baylor is on a six game losing streak, so a bowl loss to a Mountain West team would be a pretty crippling kick to the abdomen as they lie prone on the floor on a crumpled Motel 6 bedcover wondering where exactly it all went wrong.