Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The Beef 'O'Brady's Bowl! Teams. Louisville Cardinals (6-6) vs. Southern Miss Golden Eagles (8-4).
Particulars. Dec. 21 (Today), 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: Louisville (–2½)
Simon Peter (sometimes called Simon Cephas), first-century Galilean fisherman, disciple of Jesus Christ, likely inspiration for the Gospel of Mark, "Rock" upon which the earliest Christian faith was spread, first pope according to Roman Catholic doctrine, martyr at the hands of the Roman emperor Nero and namesake of the world's largest Christian church. Duh.
• Locale. Tropicana Field is a) Primarily a baseball stadium that b) Was once officially known as "The Thunderdome," and c) Is now named for a brand of orange juice. It was also the first major facility to replace AstroTurf with FieldTurf in 2000. But mainly, it's a baseball stadium on the interstate. In unrelated news, here is an historical graph of the population of St. Petersburg, Russia.
• Tradition. You may remember tonight's game from such bowls as the 2008 St. Petersburg Bowl, brought to you for the one and only time by something called magicJack, a device designed to allow customers to make phone calls over their computer for fractions of the cost of usual phone service. (And which apparently still exists, despite its failed attempt to prove that it doesn't spy on phone calls for advertising purposes.) The faux-pub chain Beef 'O' Brady's swooped in with its superfluous apostrophe just 10 days before last year's game between Rutgers and Central Florida, rechristening the plain old "St. Petersburg Bowl" into the much classier "St. Petersburg Bowl Presented by Beef 'O'Brady's."{YSP:MORE}
All of the above is code for "ESPN conjured it up out of thin air because crappy bowl games still get better ratings than bull riding or whatever else they'd put on in the same time slot."
• Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl / Haiku
• Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl / Haiku
• Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl / Haiku
• Swag. Players will receive a mini-helmet, which is kind of stupid, and sunglasses and backpack by Oakley, which whatever. But they'll also walk away with an Xbox 360 console, which ranks second only to the Capital One Bowl's $420 Best Buy shopping spree in overall value – and unlike the shopping spree, pawn shops at home will still take it.
• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. Louisville and Southern Miss are on-again, off-again rivals from long before their Conference USA days, but the intensity reached a fever pitch this week when the two sides nearly came to blows during a pregame dance-off:
"Someone said something disrespectful, did a little jawing after the dance contest … it's all good," said Louisville linebacker Dexter Heyman, who was front and center in the fracas?. It's "just a little too close to game time, ya know?"
Southern Miss players had a different perspective.
"They started talking trash about us being in Conference USA, [that] we can't dance… it was stupid. We'll do our talking on the field," uttered one Golden Eagle who refused to be identified. "A friendly dance competition and they take it all serious? It's ridiculous."
A sincere effort to win the Beef 'O'Brady's poolside dance-off, ridiculous? How dare you besmirch the integrity of this hallowed institution, sir? Have you no respect for the competitive spirit? For the hilarity lost by the abrupt cancellation of the fan favorite belly flop contest? How dare you, sir. How dare you.
• This year's match-up. The over/under from Vegas is 57½, which appropriately overestimates Louisville's defensive prowess in the offensively challenged Big East while underestimating the ability of any Conference USA defense to melt into a puddle of warm goo at any moment. Six of Southern Miss' last seven games featured at least 60 points between both teams, and the last two – a 59-41 win over Houston and 56-50 loss at Tulsa, respectively – both hit the century mark on the scoreboard, with the offenses combining for well over 1,100 total yards in both games. (And USM still finished second in C-USA in total defense.)
Louisville, on the other hand, finished 71st in scoring offense and only faced one offense that ended the season ranked in the top 40 (Kentucky, in the season opener). But once they get a little warmed up against the Golden Eagles' 103rd-ranked pass defense, the track meet will be on.
• Star power. Louisville running back Bilal Powell turned in a breakout, 1,300-yard season on 6.3 yards per carry, despite missing the better part of three games down the stretch to a knee injury. Powell churned out back-to-back 200-yard, two-touchdown games in wins over Memphis and Cincinnati in October, and went over 100 on four other occasions, after producing a single 100-yard game over the first three years of his career.
Final rating: out of five.
Points deducted for the most embarrassing name in the history of embarrassingly named bowl games, and for forcing my alma mater to associate with it. But these teams have already established that They Do Not Like Each Other, and you can't ask for much more than a high-scoring game with a low point spread on a Tuesday night.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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