Thank you. It’s for the players. The returning players who didn’t play much in the regular season get to get valuable practice reps, and a little bit of exposure playing on national tv. And for the seniors who don’t have an NFL future—which is most of them—or the ones who do, but choose to play anyway (pretty sure Baskerville, Bernard-Converse, and Ward are all playing at least) get to don the purple and gold and run out of the tunnel one last time with their brothers.

This will be the last chance for a lot of guys across the country to suit up and play the very last football game of their lives, a sport they’ve been playing—and sacrificing for—for most of their lives. That’s a big deal.

And I think the sacrificing all these guys do is underrated, and no matter the bowl and no matter the teams’ records, the bowl is a nice little reward for that sacrifice. I played college baseball for a second, and my days were brutal. A typical fall day (in-season was actually easier):
—Up at 5:30 for a 6 am run
—back home just in time to shower and get to class by 8
—all classes has to be taken from 8-12
—be at the field at 1 for “voluntary” early work in the cage and off the tee and taking so many ground balls you almost throw up
—actual practice from 3-5:45
—get to the gym and workout—hard—for an hour
—back to the field at 7 to fix the field for the next day
—finally home around 8 to fit in any studying and social life you could until time for bed (we had no delusions of playing for a significant championships at the time—like 80% of the 130 FBS CFB teams, so we sacrificed sleep like you can only do when you’re young, and went out most nights)
—back up at 5:30 am on 3ish hours sleep to do it all over again

And that was just baseball at a G5 school. It’s much more difficult, physically, to play football. I’m not gonna say it’s sucks being a football player at an FBS school these days—especially a really good P5–there are a TON of perks, especially these days. But they still have to sacrifice almost all of their time and bodies for those scholarships and perks, valuable as they may be.

So guys on 7-5 teams that may not have had “successful” seasons for whatever reasons, still made those sacrifices, and it’s hard for me to understand the hate for them getting to have a nice little vacation with some fun activities, good food, and a little schwag as a tiny reward for their year-long sacrifices.

And I also don’t get the hate for all the “meaningless” bowls from a fan perspective either. Nobody is forcing you to watch any of them. Enjoy the holiday season with your families. Again, the bowls are for the players. But if LSU is playing a game in their uniforms against another school in their uniforms, and they’re keeping score, you can bet your arse I’ll be watching 1 final time before the 1st Saturday of September, no matter who’s underneath those helmets, and pulling like hell for them to play well and win.