At least they won't have to ask for directions to the stadium.
UNC accepted a bid to the Meineke Car Care Bowl this afternoon, to be played on December 26th. The opponent will be Pittsburgh, 9-3 and most recently an extra point away from knocking off undefeated Cincinnati. It will be the Tar Heels' third trip to Charlotte this decade, and in fact the only bowl they've played since 2000. They'll also become the team with the most appearances in the game's illustrious eight-year history.
UNC fell to this bowl – which had the fifth choice among the six bowls – because Florida State was offered the Gator, but I've spent enough outrage on that over the past week. Here are a couple thoughts on the other bowl games:
- Hopefully it's a coincidence, but the BCS went out of their way to marginalize the two non-Big Six undefeated teams... by pitting Boise State and TCU against one another. So no BCS conference teams suffer the indignity of Oklahoma-Boise State 2007 or Alabama-Utah 2009, and whoever comes out 13 or 14-0, well, they still won't have played a real team, now will they?
- Boston College, in addition to getting the best location amongst the last three bowls, got the best opponent in Southern Cal. Much more exciting than Kentucky-Clemson or Virginia Tech-Tennesee I think.
- For all you bowl purists, here are the three games you'll get to enjoy on the holiest of holy college football days: Northwestern (8-4) vs. Auburn (7-5), Penn State (10-2) vs. LSU (9-3) and West Virginia (9-3) vs. Florida State (6-6). Any of those sound appealing at all?
- For you fans of college football, however, it's a mere thirty-two days until the two best teams take the field again. Thirty-two days of talk, and meaningless other games. What a way to pick a champion.