I used to love New Year's Day when I was a kid in the 1960's because of the college bowl lineup. There were four major bowl games played back-to-back starting in the morning and ending with the Orange Bowl from Miami in the evening. Some years, one or two games were of significance in deciding the national title. But, many years there was a huge question of who was number one and the issue could only be decided after all of the games had been played. The greatest years were probably 1966, 1971 and 1978 with the domino upsets that led to Alabama, Nebraska and Notre Dame’s national titles, respectively.

The bowl season was always special at my house. My brother went to Notre Dame and, in the 1970's, they were always in the discussion for the national title. It touched me very personally one year when a Notre Dame fan, a family friend named Monte, cajoled my brother and I into coming to his house to watch the Independence Bowl in 1997 between ND and LSU. We both sensed that something was wrong and he would announce that night that he was going to a Wichita, Ks  hospital for tests. Within a few months, he had passed on. I still wait for the next Notre Dame national championship so I can toast him on the other side. That was the nature of our relationship. It was defined by the love of the college game. And, my God, was he a bowl lover. Football has always tied us all together. I saved a ton of memorabilia, photos and data over the years and decided to compile it into these pages for safekeeping.

The era of the bowls gave way to the BCS, a system that was intended to narrow the season and the national championship down to two teams through the use of the voter polls, press polls and a computer rating system. For the most part, it provided a match up that sufficed in selecting the true national champion. Most years, there was no doubt at all that it provided a true national champion. Of course, some years team were left on the outside looking in. The real controversies arose, not over who was playing in the national title game, The BCS Championship, but who earned the right to be featured in one of the four big money BCS games. Those marques match ups were vital to recruiting and national exposure. The BCS era also became the era of the SEC. There is little doubt that the SEC was certainly deserving of the title appearances and proved it on the field with seven straight championships from 2007 through 2013.

Beginning with the 2014-2015 season, college football will finally enter into the playoff era. A selection committee will choose what it deems as the best four teams, who will be paired in semifinal games on New Years Eve and New Years Day. The semifinal games will rotate between six different traditional bowl game sites (Orange, Rose, Sugar, Fiesta Cotton, Peach). The National Championship will be played on a Monday night approximately one week to ten days later. The rest of the bowls will continue to be played as in the past.

The new playoff system will come close to deciding the issue on the field. It is likely that the playoff will expand to eight teams at some point in the future. Sixteen may be too many. And, with the advent of the playoff and future evolution it is less likely that a team with a realistic chance to win it all will be left out in the cold. A nice feature of the current format is that it will certainly bring focus back to New Years Eve and New Years Day. Something that the BCS system diminished. Prior to the BCS, New Year's Day was like Super Bowl Sunday in the hearts of Americans.  Remember Jerry Tagge plunging in over LSU in the Orange Bowl in 1971 to settle the question after a grueling, long day of football upsets viewed live by millions across the nation? However, in those days, there often was a team left out, claiming that they were the true national champions. Fans longed for one or two more games that could have truly decided the issue. Finally, we will have that.

THE BOWLS

San Francisco Bowl

Seattle Bowl

Spaghetti Bowl

Sugar Bowl

Sun Bowl

Tangerine Bowl

Texas Bowl

TicketCity Bowl