College football has long had bowl games to close out the season. For nearly a century, only the very best teams were given a chance to compete in prestigious games like the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the adorably-named Sugar Bowl. In recent years, however, the number of bowl games has swelled dramatically. As a result, the quality of these games has taken a nosedive. At this point, teams with outright losing records are eligible to compete in a bowl game, and that’s just sad. The Toilet Bowl was supposed to be a playful joke, not an annual occurrence.
Of course, it’s all about money. The more games there are, the more money there is to be made, in particular from advertisers and title sponsors. Indeed, we no longer have the Sugar Bowl, it’s now the “Allstate Sugar Bowl”. Even the original bowl game, the Rose Bowl, is not entirely immune. Though it doesn’t have a brand name attached directly to its name, it’s now billed as the “Rose Bowl Game presented by Capital One”. Gross.
A look at Wikipedia’s list of college bowl games will show you both how many bowls there are, as well as how many horrible names they’ve had over the years. The “Cheez-It Bowl” is a pretty bad bowl name which got some news last week. On its own, it’s certainly not the worst, but it was recently announced that in early 2023 we’re also going to have the “Cheez-It Citrus Bowl”.
The Citrus Bowl announced on Tuesday morning that it will now be known as the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl. This game, however, should not be confused with the original Cheez-It Bowl, which has gone under that moniker since the 2020 season.
Having not one, but two, Cheez-It bowl games is beyond the pale. The two games will be played on December 29, 2022 and January 2, 2023, respectively, and they’ll both take place at Camping World Stadium in Orlando. I’m absolutely certain that they will be confused for one another, and a non-zero number of people are going to wind up at the wrong game at best, or missing their desired game entirely at worst. Frankly, I can’t wait to read about them.
