Bowl Recap - 40 down, 1 to go

Nothing sez Merry Christmas Dad like a bunch of drinking and tailgate apparatuses! #mydaughtersknowmetoowell pic.twitter.com/hlvJvRszz5

— Dan Donnelly (@Dantailgater) December 25, 2015

For many schools, the Bowl Season is a reward for having a winning season. This year with forty one Bowls consisting of eighty teams, the Bowl Gods had to dip deep into the gridiron well by grabbing a slew of teams with .500 records and three teams with 5-7 records. Most of the early bowls played to empty audiences much like Hillary at an NRA rally or the Donald at an Anger Management seminar. The one exception was the Holy War between BYU and Utah in the Vegas Bowl (Odd place for a gathering of the Mormon faithful). Of course this was also year two of the College Football Playoff that would bring real meaning to the post season, and New Year’s Eve with the semifinals being played in Miami and Dallas.

Drubaca attacking Miss Utah at the Holy War

The Fullington/Heins crew braving the snow at New Mexico Bowl

A local contingent of the DFT crew enjoyed the Foster Farm Bowl at Santa Clara the day after Christmas to witness the 5-7 Nebraska Cornhuskers take down the UCLA Bruins 37-29. The crew consisted of Bruin Alums John Maddalon and Tony Seber and their familias, the Tim Pollock Panda Pride and Dan.
 

Salute to the Foster Farms Bowl!

Chef Panda firing up some vittles.

 

Christie torturing a UCLA Fan.

The Pandas, Maddalons, Sebers and Dan

 

Bears of a feather.....

The coolest Christmas gift goes to Sooner fan Luke Munding

For the main Bowl season event, we made our way down to So Cal New Year’s Eve for the 102^nd Rose Bowl game and 127^th Parade of Roses. We were joined by DFT loyalists Sneezy and Monica Rabago and legendary BC Eagle Tailgaters Pops and Peggy Leblanc. After arriving at our lodgings in Santa Clarita we performed a dry run for the main event the next day by room-gating with pizza and libations only to watch our Oklahoma Sooners flame out against a better prepared Clemson Tiger team in the Orange Bowl. Oh well, so much for me going to the National Championship game in Phoenix, “wait till next season!” New Year’s Eve dinner was celebrated at Larsen’s Steak House in Valencia over a side of beef, good wine and the Bama blowout of Sparty in the other Semifinal in Dallas. New Year’s morning had us departing the hotel at zero dark thirty to arrive in time to watch the Rose Parade in downtown Pasadena. I highly recommend this to see once in your lifetime, and only once as I am not much of a floral enthusiast!  

My Favorite float in the parade...here comes the King here comes the big #1!

The Rose Bowl by far is the best organized and well run Bowl in America. Every true college football fan must attend it at least once in their lifetime. We had our tailgate up and running in no time on the driving range of Brookside Golf course adjacent to the stadium. Joining us for the ho-down was my cousin Teen and her husband Dr. Eric Glassy. We dined in style with sautéed lobstuh tails, crab cakes, assorted sides, Bloody Mary’s washed down with a few beer funnels of suds. In fact, the pre-game gathering was so much fun we did not make it into the Granddaddy of Them All until the second quarter. We were even provided our own private flyover of the stealth jet buzzing our tent. 

The good Doctor and his thirsty bride

Patsy's Girls

 

What better way to start the year.

Protection; never leave home without it!

 

Mrs tailgate and her twin Monica

Pops the gourmet Tailgate Chef

 

The first couple of Tailgate

Not a good idea to torment the chef if you want to eat

 

The Rabago welcoming committee

The Leblancs under the iconic sign

 

Cousins

The Stealth flyover

 

The Rose Bowl DFT crew

As most already know, the game was over by the time we entered the stadium as Stanford and its one man wrecking crew of Christian McCaffery held a commanding 28-0 lead. It’s a good thing they served something other than soda in the venue to keep things.... shall we say entertaining? The throngs of Iowa faithful who outnumbered the StanNerd crowd by a margin of two to one were quiet and maudlin. To add insult to injury, we had to witness another despicable performance by the Stanford scatter band at halftime. More on that below. Stanford ended up winning handily 45-16 with C- Mac setting all kinds of ridiculous records.
 

Panoramic shot of the Granddaddy of them all

 

Sharing a fresca at the game

Bowl Recap:

Bowl	Outcome
New Mexico Bowl	Arizona 45  New Mexico 37
Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl	Utah 35  BYU 28
Camelia Bowl	Appalachian St 31  Ohio 29
Cure Bowl	San Jose State 27  Georgia State 16
New Orleans Bowl	Louisiana Tech 47 Arkansas State 28
Miami Beach Bowl	Western Kentucky 45  South Florida 35
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl	Akron 23  Utah State 21
Boca Raton Bowl	Toledo 32  Temple 17
Poinsettia Bowl	Boise State 55  Northern Illinois 7
Godaddy Bowl	Georgia Southern 58  Bowling Green 27
Bahamas Bowl	Western Michigan 45 Middle Tennessee 31
Hawaii Bowl	San Diego State 42 Cincinnati 7
Saint Petersburg Bowl	Marshall 16  UConn 10
Sun Bowl	Wazzou 20  Miami 14
Heart of Dallas Bowl	Washington 44  Southern Miss 31
Pinstripe Bowl	Duke 44  Indiana 41
Independence Bowl	VA Tech 55  Tulsa 52
Foster Farms Bowl	Nebraska 37  UCLA 29
Military Bowl	Navy 44  Pitt 28
Quicklane Bowl	Minnesota 21  Central Michigan 14
Armed Forces Bowl	California 55  Air Force 36
Russel Athletic Bowl	Baylor 49  North Carolina 38
Arizona Bowl	Nevada 28  Colorado State 23
Texas Bowl	LSU 56  Texas Tech 27
Birmingham Bowl	Auburn 31  Memphis 10
Belk Bowl	Mississippi State 51 NC State 28
Music City Bowl	Louisville 27  Texas A&M 21
Holiday Bowl	Wisconsin 23  USC 21
Peach Bowl	Houston 38  Florida State 24
Orange Bowl	Clemson 37  Oklahoma 17
Cotton Bowl	Alabama 38  Michigan State 0
Outback Bowl	Tennessee 45  Northwestern 6
Fiesta Bowl	Ohio State 44  Notre Dame 28
Citrus Bowl	Michigan 41  Florida 7
Rose Bowl	Stanford 45  Iowa 16
Sugar Bowl	Ole Miss 48  Oklahoma State 20
Taxslayer Bowl	Georgia 24  Penn State 17
Liberty Bowl	Arkansas 45  Kansas State 23
Alamo Bowl	TCU 47  Oregon 41
Cactus Bowl	WVU 43  Arizona State 42

If Oregon hadn't given up those last 5 touchdowns they would have been fine

— Fake Bo Pelini (@FauxPelini) January 3, 2016

Bieber Award – Perhaps the most egregious Bieberosity of the year occurred in front of my eyes at halftime of the Rose Bowl. Once again, the not funny, not talented, loser riddled, elitist Stanford Band attempted to make a mockery of people from Iowa. The Collective “Stains on the bed sheets of life” had been suspended from performing at road games all year by the PAC 12 for past bad behavior but were permitted to come to the Rose Bowl. Mind you, this is an uber liberal university that has safe zones and prides itself on an anti- bullying platform. However, they think it is fine to make fun of other people. They attempted in their perverse nerdy way to make fun of farmers (I guess these idiots think their food comes from Google and Facebook and not the heartland) by doing a skit of a farmersonly.com dating service. They also adorned several geeks in a cow costume and tried to emulate cow tipping. This was probably the closest some of the Stanturd males have ever been to a female in their lives. In fact the cow was better looking than all of the Stanford female band nerds. At one point they attempted to make a sad farmer face out of their members, however it looked more like a self- portrait of themselves representing male genitalia. It is a shame as I have much respect for the football product Stanford puts on the field. However their mascot and band are a poor reflection on their school and program. It’s no wonder Harbaugh couldn’t wait to bolt. Well Stanturd Band, next year when you are home on New Year’s Day and your team is at the Rose Bowl, your consolation will be the first Bieber Award of 2016!

My season is over, however I will be watching the FCS Championship game Saturday on TV and of course the big game on 1/11 between Clemson and Bama. I will do my final write up of the year after next Monday.

Happy Tailgating!