Sunday Morning Quarterback

Monday, December 19, 2005

SMQ BOWL BLITZ: TO WATCH OR NOT TO WATCH?
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~~New Orleans~~ Lafayette Bowl: Just go ahead and call it the "Cajun Bowl." What's the difference?

Balleyhooed bowl season begins with a whimper tonight in Lafayette, Louisiana, unlikely launching pad for one of the holiday season's most gratuitous, slothful and corporatist traditions. SMQ sizes up this one-sided pillow fight and introduces the Watchability Rating:

Strap oneself to nearest easy chair; deny existence of outside world.

Prepare in advance with a hefty bowl of microwave popcorn, or a sizeable takeout order from a local establishment.

Tune in until it gets out of hand, or somebody actually calls for a change.

Flip away for increasingly longer periods during commercials until standby show becomes more interesting than game.

Watch while learning to tie a traditional hangman's noose.

Who: Southern Miss (6-5) vs. Arkansas State (6-5)
Where: Cajun Field, Lafayette, Louisiana. This field is almost literally across the street from SMQ's uncle and aunt's house and next to something called the Cajun Dome, and his assessment is this: Cajun Field is sunken, so when you drive by, from the road, the stands look like they couldn't hold the parents of a junior high band competition.
Watch Because: College football! Back! After two weeks! Two WHOLE weeks! You got bugs crawlin' on your skin! You need your fix and you need it bad. You don't care anymore. You'll do anything. Conference USA. Sun Belt. Lafayette. Six and five. Anything to draw every last high out of this smoked-up season, no matter how you'll feel when it's over.
Don't Watch Because: Obviously.
In addition: Sun Belt teams have lost three out of four in this bowl's dubious history, all by double digits and two by at least three scores. Arkansas State won that league at 6-5, which says all you need to know about the illegally-mascoted Indians. Mel Kiper, Jr., describes the USM defense, one that ranked 78th overall and during one stretch blew two-score leads and allowed career-best rushing performances in three consecutive games, as "fundamentally sound and disciplined," which says what you already knew about Kiper's scouting abilities.
What Else is On: You have no life. But the ~~New Orleans~~ Lafayette Bowl isn't your only option to fill the void eroding your inner soul.
WB, 7 p.m. CST - Gilmore Girls: Always a Godmother, Never a God
Jackson's quirky family is in town for his children's baptisms. Sookie asks Lorelai and Rory to be godmothers, and Lorelai suspects it's a ploy to get them together. Also: Lane freaks out when Brian and Zack spend all of the band's tour money.

ABC, 8 p.m. CST - Barbara Walters: Heaven. Where Is It? How Do We Get There?
120 mins. "Heaven. Where Is It? How Do We Get There?" This road map to the afterlife, as viewed by various religions, also examines contrarian views of skeptics and neutral views of scientists. "Is [heaven] an actual place, or a myth made up to give life meaning?" asks host Barbara Walters, who interviews Catholic, Protestant, Islamic and Jewish clergy (including Rabbi Jackie Mason), the Dalai Lama, Buddhist Richard Gere, and people who say they have had a near-death experience, including Elizabeth Taylor.

Lifetime, 8 p.m. CST - Miracle on the 17th Green
120 mins. Robert Urich plays a 50-year-old adman who pursues his dream of playing on golf's Senior Tour - and neglects his wife (Meredith Baxter) and family in the process - after losing his job. What he finds is his putting stroke, after his late father's clubs turn up mysteriously under the Christmas tree. Earl: Ernie Hudson. Toby: Dylan Moen. Peter McKinley: Donovan Rhodes. Father McNaughton: Matthew Walker. Megan: Chelsea Hobbs.

TBS, 9 p.m. CST - Daisy Does America: Rap
30 mins. Daisy tries to become a hip-hop star in her quest for the American dream. She learns how to rap freestyle, lands a cool new wardrobe and enters a rap battle in South Central Los Angeles.
Watchability Rating: SMQ is a diehard alumni with solid ties to one of these programs, and even he might opt for Gilmore Girls.

SMQ's Pick: Southern Miss 33, Arkansas State 16

WEDNESDAY: The GMAC Bowl (you used to know where this one was played, remember?)
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10:49 PM

Comments:

I feel dirty just watching this game. Turnovers, late hits, knuckleballs going through the hands of both WRs and DBs. Finally! A field goal! Oh yes.

There's some good options on the NatGeo channel...

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:04 PM