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Today’s bowl game previews brought to you by MENTOS

(the freshmaker)

Pandora Holiday Live Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Pandora Media

Morning. Today’s action is coming at you from some of the most scenic (San Francisco, The Bronx) and uninspired (Orlando, Houston) landscapes in all our country. Buckle in for another full day of “oh yeah I saw this team play once this year, they have that one guy” memories.

PINSTRIPE BOWL

by Rush

Northwestern vs. Pittsburgh

December 28th, 1:00 p.m. | ESPN

I want to talk about the greatest commercial about pinstriped suits ever made.

Like Pat Fitzgerald’s lat routine, Pat Narduzzi’s offensive philosophy, and the notion that Yankee Stadium is to pinnacle of earth’s sporting venues, this commercial is raw, unadulterated nineties nostalgia. We’ve got this hapless fella on his way to a job interview. He’s wearing a baggy suit and his hair makes Craig Scheffer’s ‘do from “The Program” look like a military cut. Oops! He sits in wet paint. But here’s where the Nineties Man On The Go shines: he does not panic, he pops a Mentos and finds a quick solution by rolling around on the freshly-painted bench to give his suit a perfect pinstripe pattern. He even meticulously drags a sleeve through wet paint as a finishing touch as the goofy workman looks on in stunned bemusement. Then he gets his briefcase and jauntily heads off to absolutely NAIL that interview. Trevor here was a hugely successful hedge fund manager for 15 years until the bubble burst in ‘08. Sadly, his stock in Mentos was not the safety net he’d anticipated and he’s now selling real estate in Ithaca while picking up the odd shift at Red Lobster. He hasn’t eaten a Mentos in eight years. Pittsburgh rolls in this one like a youthful nineties optimist rolling on a freshly-painted park bench.

RUSSELL ATHLETIC BOWL

by Shooter

Miami vs West Virginia

December 28th, 4:30 pm | ESPN

FOSTER FARMS BOWL

by Jimmy

Indiana vs. Utah

December 28th, 7:00 p.m. | FOX

Take a journey with me. Close your eyes. Dream up the most banal, uninteresting, milquetoast, honky white people as possible. Have a few images in mind? They're from either Utah or Indiana. One of these states is a whitewashed forgettable landscape full of aggressive religious nut jobs terrified of anyone darker than Brits-in-winter.

The other is Utah.

The fact that these two fan bases are in a bowl game sponsored by a chicken company is just too fitting. This would be like the Horns playing in a bowl (LOL) sponsored by the fucking Lumineers. The Foster Farms Bowl used to be played in a baseball stadium in downtown San Francisco in front of dozens of tech bros and violent hobos. Now, the game has moved south to the 49ers stadium which sits tidily in a Silicon Valley office park dying to have its bubble punctured. The game is being played on FOX despite having all the trappings of a noon game on the Big Ten Network. Come for the salmonella, stay for the asinine Joel Klatt truther takes - but also - GUS JOHNSON.

TEXAS BOWL

STAY TUNED....