Saturday, January 03, 2009

International Bowl mania grips Big Smoke

Or something like that anyway.

Putting aside my bitterness that this money grab bowl game gets 10 times the attention in the Toronto media as does this country's actual college football title game, I give you a little preview of tomorrow's vitally important International Bowl.

The majority of the New York Times bloggers tip their hat to UConn, suggesting that MAC Cinderellas aren't a good bet when playing teams from actual conferences. Even if they were fourth.

Canada's best sportswriter even weighs in (when was the last time Brunt covered the Vanier? Sorry, I said I'd drop that. Carry on) with the worthwhile story of how Buffalo forfeited its only other bowl game in solidarity with two African-American teammates who would have been denied the opportunity to play in the racist south.

The Buffalo News focuses on the Canadian connections in the game. Surprisingly they don't offer up the paranoid opinion that U of T is planning to steal the Bulls (although now that I think about it...).

And the Hartford Courant says it's all about Turner Gill and his tricky, tricky offense. Speaking of, there's a Buffalo football personality Toronto may want to steal...

Enjoy the game and remember. They don't punt on third down.

1 comment:

sager said...

David Naylor has a very good article up at globesports.com>.

I found this amusing. Buffalo got flagged for 12 men on the field on Connecticut's first touchdown.

Incidentally, Turner Gill, it would have been great to see him take over at another upstate NY school, Syracuse. However, since he was passed up for gigs at BCS-conference schools, two other African-Americans have been hired as coaches in the top division of the NCAA, including Ron English at another Mid-American school, Eastern Michigan. Call that the Gill effect.

(Greatest line ever: When Gill took over the Bulls, he said the "UB" on the helmets now stood for "U Believe."

Nice job by Gill turning around that old joke about his alma mater, Nebraska -- where people said the "N" on the helmets is for "knowledge."