Roy Englebrecht, who comes across to me as a Bill or Mike Veeck, a prankster who happens to also be a sports promoter, is getting headlines today for his proposed Irrelevant Bowl, which he envisions, I assume tongue-in-cheek, matching up the two worst teams in FBS next December.
“No polls, no rankings, no controversy, just two winless or near winless teams looking for redemption and one elusive win,” said Englebrecht, whose idea, of course, has no chance of coming to fruition.
His dream game would have, this season, matched up 2-10 Vanderbilt and 1-11 Akron, which would have, no doubt, drawn tens, borderline scores, of fans to whatever falling-in-on-itself municipal stadium that would have been graced with this game on its social calendar.
No self-respecting AD or FBS coach would want to play in this game, and despite Englebrecht putting a quote in his press release touting that his game would have no opt-outs, of course it would.
Why would any kid risk a torn ACL or head injury in a game that is literally a joke?
But that seems to be the point of Englebrecht’s PR blitz on this.
“I am sure a whole lot of college football fans laugh at some of the current 40 postseason college bowl games that are of very little interest with games that feature a 6-6 team versus a 6-6 team. At least with the Irrelevant Bowl, the players have something to play for, and fans have a reason to tune in to watch two teams really fight to capture that treasured win, now, that is drama,” Englebrecht said.
The point is made: there’s a glut of bad college football disguised as meaningful bowl games.
To that end, I will not harbor any snide comments about how this Irrelevant Bowl would at least give Virginia something to play for next fall.
I happen to be of the (perhaps deluded) belief that Tony Elliott will get UVA into one of those 6-6 versus 6-6 cold-weather bowl games next December.
Those games, to be clear, are already irrelevant, and get less attention than Englebrecht got from his PR stunt today, so, credit to him for that.
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Chris Graham
