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 Champs Sports Bowl! Teams. N.C. State Wolfpack (8-4) vs. West Virginia Mountaineers (9-3).
Particulars. Dec. 28 (Today), 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: West Virginia (–3)
Patron Saint: Entertainment mogul Walt Disney, whose 1965 decision to locate Disney World just outside of Orlando – instead of Miami or Tampa, which were more vulnerable to hurricanes – transformed the city from a citrus-growing dot to a perpetual tourist mecca: Orlando was America's most visited city in 2009, almost 40 years after the theme park first opened its doors.
• Locale. By my count, the current Florida Citrus Bowl has endured four formal name changes and no fewer than seven failed alterna-league pro football franchises in its 75-year existence: The Orlando Broncos (1962-63), Orlando Panthers (1966-70), Florida Blazers (1974), Orlando Americans (1981), Orlando Renegades (1985), Orlando Thunder (1991-92) and the much-lamented Orlando Rage (2001). That list doesn't include the current UFL franchise, the Florida Tuskers, a short-lived professional soccer team, the Orlando Sundogs, or a fictional NFL expansion team, the Orlando Breakers, headed by celebrated sitcom coach Hayden Fox in the mid-nineties.
This year's major upgrade: The installation of artificial FieldTurf, which is no footnote after atrocious conditions last year contributed to a major knee injury in the Champs Sports Bowl and turned the Capital One Bowl into a swampy trudge through No Man's Land.
• Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
• Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
• Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl
• Dec. 22: Maaco Bowl Las Vegas
• Dec. 23: Poinsettia Bowl
• Dec. 24: Hawaii Bowl
• Dec. 26: Little Caesars Bowl
• Dec. 27: Independence Bowl
• Tradition. No bowl anywhere has survived as many makeovers in as short a period of time as this one, and in fact it's debatable whether the current "Champs Sports Bowl" even qualifies as the same entity that was forged as the "Blockbuster Bowl" at all. In 1990, Blockbuster bought into and renamed the proposed "Sunshine Classic" before the first game, thereby establishing the modern precedent for sponsor-only bowl titles while also consigning this particular game to life as an ever-evolving billboard – every time the bowl changes sponsors, it changes names, and it’s changed sponsors five times in 20 years.
In fact, "Blockbuster Bowl" itself was not so bad. But when the game was crassly rechristened as the Carquest Bowl in 1994, the floodgates were opened. It went on to suffer through stints as the MicronPC Bowl in 1998 and the MicronPC.com Bowl in 2000 (see, one is the PC company, the other is the website of the PC company). The tourist group Visit Florida moved the game from Miami to Orlando in 2001 and renamed it, respectably, the Tangerine Bowl, at which point – under a different sponsor with a different name and a new location – it becomes unclear that we're actually referring to the same game. (As always, however, Wikipedia rules on these matters, and the game's own website also claims the continuity.) Visit Florida operated it as such along with Mazda for three years, until giving way in 2004 to Champs Sports, which ditched the "Tangerine" business and returned the bowl to its unabashedly corporate roots. It's a feel-good story, really.
• Swag. The Champs Sports Bowl is one of two games (along with its cousin, the Capital One Bowl, also organized by Florida Citrus Sports) that features the holy grail of bowl swag: A $420 Best Buy shopping spree. Everything in the store is up for grabs up to the designated amount, which is, like, a "Twilight: New Moon" DVD for almost everyone you know.
The only catch: Players can't take any of the money with them. Whatever they don't spend, they forfeit. But you better believe I would be trying to pool up with the starting offensive line for a big score.
• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. Ultimate Athletic, the official apparel provider of the Champs Sports Bowl, is offering color-coded t-shirt deals to partisans of both sides, encouraging N.C. State fans to "Pack It In, Red It Out" while West Virginia fans embark on a "Gold Rush," all for the low, low cost of $20 per shirt. This cherished keepsake is sure to last at least a week into the new year, unless you decide to burn it anger after a tough loss.
• This year's match-up. For a matchup of fringe also-rans, West Virginia-N.C. State came surprisingly close to being another Orange Bowl from hell. The Mountaineers were only an overtime away from the Big East championship, and finished as the conference's highest-ranked team on the heels of a five-game winning streak to close the regular season. For its part, N.C. State came within a touchdown (and a questionable spot) in a 38-31 loss at Maryland of representing the Atlantic Division in the ACC Championship Game.
Even if that wouldn't make for such a great BCS game, the collision of West Virginia's first-rate defense and prolific Wolfpack quarterback Russell Wilson still projects as one of the best bangs for your buck among the second-tier games you might normally scroll past.
• Star power. Wilson – probably playing in his last college game before embarking on a pro baseball career – had eight games with at least 300 yards and multiple touchdowns through the air, easily leading the ACC in both categories. Collectively, however, the West Virginia defense is more likely to steal the show: Seven different Mountaineers were voted first or second-team All-Big East, for a unit that finished second nationally in rushing and scoring defense and third in yards allowed.
WVU didn't allow a 300-yard passing game or 200-yard rushing game all season, or a 400-yard game overall; only rivals Marshall and Pittsburgh even managed to top 300 yards, both in defeat. N.C. State may be the best offense the Mountaineers have faced this season, especially in the passing game, but the opposite is probably more true: The Wolfpack only faced one top-20 defense, Boston College.
Final rating: out of five.
Show me a pair of eight-game winners from "Big Six" conferences that each spent considerable time in the polls and were competitive in every game, and I'll show you one of the better showdowns on the December schedule.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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