Bowled Over?

A lot of talk around town on the University of Cincinnati Bearcats bowl invitation from the PapaJohn’s.com Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama and the lack of an invitation from the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina or the Brut Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. UC has accepted the PapaJohn’s.com Bowl invitation but the Cincinnati.com UC Bearcat Blog is full of comments about the lack of "respect". There is also a lot of good information on that blog. This includes what seems to be the deciding factor for the bowl committees: How many tickets will a school sell to and for the respective bowl. (Click here for a summary of the Big East's Bowl Partnerships.) Apparently others schools in the Big East – Connecticut, South Florida, Rutgers, Louisville, and West Virginia – have a better history of selling tickets to bowls in which they appear or a perceived better traveling fan base.

I am a UC Season Ticket holder. I am pretty sure I have already paid $50 toward a bowl ticket. And while I guess I should go to PapaJohn’s.com Bowl to improve our perception as having a great traveling fan base, Birmingham just does not hold that much appeal. My gut says I’d rather go to the International Bowl just so I could hang out in Toronto for a weekend. To be honest, I am not sure Charlotte or El Paso sound all that interesting to me either. So does anyone have any information on Birmingham? Anyone been there?

To get a clue I checked out their Visitor's Bureau and the City's website:

• They have a new nickname: The DiverseCity
• It is smaller in population than Cincinnati at 242,820 residents.
• Vulcan Park is a 10 acre park that contains the world's largest cast iron statue.
• There is $1 billion in redevelopment downtown including an entertainment area near the Convention Center
• Condoleezza Rice is from there.

Ok, I'm sure it will be fun for a weekend. And I realize I am there for the game. Maybe we just need to make the best of it, finish No. 1 in the Big East next year and make it to a BCS Bowl. Take those bowl committees out of the process. I think we can do it.