The Big Ten has a record 10 teams out of its 12 total in college football bowl games this season.
But with the bowl schedule for Monday, Jan 2, someone wasn't thinking straight in the Big Ten office.
Sure, it's nice to have five of the day's six games featuring your conference's teams, but three of them (Nebraska, Michigan State and Ohio State) go head-to-head-to-head in their games starting at 1 p.m.
Not only that, but Penn State's game at noon will overlap on those three as well before Big Ten champion Wisconsin plays Oregon in the Rose Bowl from Pasadena at 5 p.m. on ESPN
Unless you have ESPNU though, you won't see the Nittany Lions versus Houston in the TicketCity Bowl from Dallas anyway.
But the three-way Big Ten logjam occurs an hour later when the Buckeyes kick off against Florida in the Gator Bowl from Jacksonville on ESPN2, the Spartans tackle Georgia in the Outback Bowl from Tampa on ABC and the Cornhuskers take the field in Orlando to face South Carolina in the Capital One Bowl on ESPN.
Now I know this has happened before with the crowded glut of games on New Year's Day - or its facsimile like this year on Jan. 2 as the colleges don't want to butt heads with the NFL on Sunday. But there should be a better way to showcase your conference's teams in their bowl games other than pitting them against each other by putting them in games played at the same time.
A white decal with a black JD and a scarlet Buckeye leaf will honor Daniels and a black decal with a white JB will honor Mrs. Bruce, who died Dec. 16 at 75.
I knew Jean through Earle who was an assistant coach for Woody Hayes when I was an OSU football manager from 1968-70. At that time, the Bruces had two young daughters and I had two younger sisters, Doris and Susie.
Eventually through someone my mom taught with who was a good friend of Mrs. Bruce, my sisters started baby-sitting for the Bruces - and did for quite a few years even after I graduated from Ohio State. They ended up baby-sitting all four of the Bruces' daughters.
Doris and Susie even baby-sat for the Bruces at a Rose Bowl the Buckeyes played in, when my family drove out to California and stayed in Long Beach with my aunt and uncle. Susie still has a picture of Earle in my aunt's driveway with a Tournament of Roses car that he drove down to Long Beach from Pasadena to pick up my sisters to take them back to our team's hotel so they could baby-sit.
The funny thing is I never knew my sisters were baby-sitting for the Bruces until my mom or someone told me.
But through all the intervening years since then, whenever I see Earle at an Ohio State football game or team reunion, he always asks about my sisters, how they are and what they're doing now.
Contact Steve Hemmelgarn at shemmelgarn@newsandsentinel.com
