I love bowl season.  That's a simple, straight-forward, allegory-and-pop-culture-free statement that couldn't be more true.  Even if it's the ugliest of games and a lop-sided mismatch, getting to spend four hours with two teams you're not familiar with and C-team announcers give you the chance to learn so much while cracking a lot of entertaining jokes with friends during the holidays.  I remember the night I discovered the Pistol formation, Christmas Eve 2005, an overtime Hawaii Bowl against Central Florida, and now it'll be run in the BCS Title game by LSU.  While a lot of the bowl memories stored away in my hazy, scrambled mind are from the big, shiny ones, some of my favorites have been the obscure shoot-outs and comebacks that most of the nation doesn't notice.

Just like people, however, all bowls are not created equal, and some look a lot better than others.  For the second year in a row, your Rakes of Mallow Bowl Previewpalooza.  Here's your full bowl schedule to make your own judgments.

For the anti-playoff people who say we can't go to brackets because it would devalue the regular season because "every game counts" right now, tell me exactly how Kansas vs. Missouri counted.  Mizzou beats them on a neutral field and gets it second loss to a team the Jayhawks didn't even play, and it's Kansas going to a BCS bowl while the Tigers head to Dallas.  

Regardless, Columbia's loss is the rest of the nation's gain, as whatever game Arkansas played in would be worth watching for the McFadden Factor, but now that they're playing an offense equally as explosive, I don't see a more exciting game on the slate.  Chase Daniel lost any chance he had at the Heisman in San Antonio Saturday night, but he could do wonders in starting off the 2008 campaign with a great game here.  This also might be the last chance to see the McFadden-run Wild Hog formation, which deserves a proper send-off.  The Cotton Bowl doesn't get enough credit for being one of the consistently entertaining games year in and year out, and barring some sort of disaster on either sideline, this one should live up to my hype.

Jim Tressel, bless his heart, was on ESPN's bowl show trying to downplay the factor of playing LSU in New Orleans.  We experienced it first hand last year, and it's terrifying.  If any fanbase is redneck enough to combat the Bayou Bengals, it's that of the Ohio State Buckeyes, but I'm telling you, there's nothing like thinking you have the run of New Orleans for a few days then having all of Baton Rouge descend on game day to flood the streets with purple and chants of "Tiger Bait."  

As far as match-ups go, it'll be interesting to see if the problem with LSU's defense is injury or scheme, although who knows if Ohio State has enough pop on offense to achieve what the likes of Kentucky and Arkansas did.  Although everyone seems to think Ohio State deserves to be in this game due to only having one loss, I think there's some serious potential for the Big Ten to show just how awful it was all season, with games against Tebow, Booty and Ryan.  If the Buckeyes had trouble stopping Illinois' spread, how in the world are they going to compete with the team speed of LSU, especially after what Percy Harvin and Jarvis Moss did to them last season?  As pointed out by my roommate Sean, there's also the good chance Les Miles fantasizes he's coaching against Ohio State as the Michigan head coach, trying to avenge the past few seasons' losses against the Buckeyes, thus providing further motivation to number two team in the nation (and six-and-a-half-point favorite when the lines opened).

My favorite example of pundits preaching their knowledge about who deserves to play for the title and being flat wrong is Herbie pounding the pulpit and extolling the virtues of an Ohio State and Michigan rematch.  If anyone can find the clip or text of him saying "I know Michigan would beat Florida on a neutral field because I saw them both play," I'd really enjoy seeing it.  Everyone realizes that statement is ridiculous after both Ohio State and Michigan got their asses handed to them, but this the Gators' chance to really rub it in.

The Wolverines will hopefully have a coach lined up by then (I hear Cal fans are more than ready to part with Tedford at this point), but Lloyd Carr's swansong might not be pretty, as a healthy Tebow/Harvin combo might make what Dennis Dixon did back in September seem kind.  Urban Meyer goes for his third straight bowl win versus the Big Ten as top Gator, adding the maize and blue's scalp to the wall next to Iowa and Ohio State.  This is also the last chance for the Henne/Hart/Long combination to win a bowl game, and after failing to beat Ohio State in their careers and going 2-2 against some relatively crappy Notre Dame teams, they might want to leave some kind of positive legacy behind beyond "Well, we almost beat Vince Young that one time."

Ty Willingham is such a ridiculously awful coach.  In the first half against Hawaii, all the Huskies did was blitz on defense and run on offense to a pretty high success rate.  Give the Rainbow Warriors some credit for adjusting, but heesh, blowing two 21-point leads is embarrassing.  Still, if you stayed up until three in the morning, you got to see a pretty special performance by Colt Brennan down the stretch.  Hawaii gets on these amazing runs where their receivers always seem to be open and always seem to pick up major yards after the catch.  Part of this probably has to do with inferior competition, but something must be said for the adjustments the receivers make in their routes and Brennan's accuracy and speedy delivery.

Obviously, the Rainbow Warriors will have to stop a pretty potent one-two punch in the Dawgs' Moreno-Stafford backfield, but their receivers will be getting to play in perfect conditions for the offense to work.  Remember, for all the accolades of "Hottest team in the country," this Georgia team got curb-stomped by Erik Ainge and Tennessee's passing attack.  Mark Richt has obviously rallied the troops, but for everyone writing the folks from the Big Island off, I'd hold off just a bit.

(By the way, if Hawaii and LSU both win, LSU would still have a considerably better resume, but you'd have an undefeated Rainbow Warriors team getting below a two-loss team.  It's probably a thin argument and definitely wouldn't happen - I think UGA wins this, although I'm not "Totally 100% sure" like others - but it would be interesting to see what the final AP voters would do if Hawaii looks .)

Let's get rid of the lines and wide receivers and just let Stephen McGee, Jorvorskie Lane and Mike Goodson go against Dan Connor, Sean Lee and Anthony Scirrotto.  Anthony Morelli, awful on the road and pretty good at home, gets another chance at a neutral site game.  Last year in the Outback Bowl he put together a nice little game that had Nittany Lion fans dreaming of championships, but that was with Tony Hunt doing the heavy lifting.  After getting rid of Austin Scott, the PSU running game has gotten considerably better, and it's not like the Aggies are known for their stout defense.  Illinois and Indiana, they of the mobile quarterback persuasion, put up some points on Paterno's boys, and Texas A&M is coming off their best performance of the season against Texas.  Could be a fun little game down in San Antonio.

As soon as this was announced, Lee Corso was predicting a Sooner beat down, but I'm not sure I'm ready to sign off on that.  Steve Slaton has some redeeming to do after Saturday night's performance (he had to have been injured or something, right?) and a healthy Pat White should also be trying to set the pace of next year.  The first time teams play West Virginia's spread, it's a lot like when non-conference teams would take on Emeka Okafor when he was at UConn: they just weren't ready for it at first.  Before the first television timeout, they would always try some cute shot in the lane that got blocked into the fourth row, at which point the opposition would truly realize the sheer magnitude of the man guarding the middle that didn't show up on film.  Bob Stoops is a capable coach and should be able to make adjustments if the gameplan isn't work at first, but the last two years has found the Mountaineers putting up some huge numbers in their bowl games.

At the beginning of the season, after Sam Bradford proved himself, I thought Oklahoma was The Truth.  Then, after the Colorado loss and close calls against Iowa State, Texas and Missouri, I wavered.  After the debacle in Lubbock, they seem to have righted the ship in a big-time way, and a sound beatdown of the Mountaineers would increase their claim to a national title a lot of pundits seem to think they deserve a shot at.

You've got a quick-strike passing game trying to combat the destructive tendencies of a fantastic defensive end, so we can only hope the New York Times dispatches Michael Lewis to cover this game.  I'm a professed lover of all things Mike Leach, and I'll admit now I've watched a couple of Virginia games and can say little about them beyond Chris Long is a man's man.  I watched them score a bunch of touchdowns in the Virginia Tech and Miami (FL) games, but I couldn't really tell you how they did it.  This has a potential to turn into a blowout, because much like Hawaii or West Virginia's offense, once the Red Raiders get rolling, it's game over.  Michael Crabtree, baby!  Bust out the dual televisions to properly watch this and the Cotton Bowl at the same time, occasionally flicking over to see the innards of Michigan lying on the field in Orlando, blood trickling down the side of Tebow's face.

I've been tooting the horn of Juice and the Illini all year, but I can't imagine how they'll do against a healthy Trojan defensive front.  To further Illinois' problem, they're at a disadvantage in the coaching position and the Southern Cal offense is starting to roll.  With the notable exception of Vince Young, Pete Carroll has owned the Rose Bowl - really, all BCS bowls - over the last half decade, and I can't see Illinois changing that.

(Still, Illinois is only a few breaks away from being undefeated, having lost close games to Mizzou, Michigan and Iowa.  And Juice looked like he put it all together finally against Ohio State.  And Benn and Mendenhall are really good.  And they have a linebacker whose name is just "J."  Nah, not possible.  Ohio State is probably just that bad...)

Boston College owns the pre-New Years, little-acclaimed bowl circuit, and this season's contest against the Spartans is right up their alley.  Mark Dantonio's team started to show some signs at the end of the season, nearly beating Michigan and coming back against Penn State, but that might have more to do with the poor quality of the "upper tier" of Big Ten teams than anything else.  The ACC vs. The Big Ten in football is like a cripple fight, Jimmy vs. Timmy in a back alley-style, and this seems like as good a time as any for Matt Ryan to rise above with one more crazy comeback win to close out his career.

(I realize, as a Notre Dame fan, I should be jealous of any bowl win streak due to our string of postseason failures, but how do you not stumble into a New Years Day game every once in a while?)

After last year's clunker, brought to you by the one-dimensional Texas A&M offense and the only performance in a bowl of note Jeff Tedford has ever put on, you'd think there'd be some bounce-back opportunity here.  Rudy Carpenter shredding Texas' awful back seven while Jamaal Charles has to quietly twiddle his thumbs until leading the second half comeback.  Arizona State has sort of stumbled its way to this position, getting handled by Southern Cal and Oregon and barely surviving against the likes of Washington State and Arizona, but hey, they're here.  Might be a little disappointed they're here, but it's not like Texas fans are super excited coming off a second straight loss to the rival Aggies.  Plus, everyone in Austin will be focused on the basketball team, so I doubt the majority in burnt orange pays minimum attention to this game, instead watching Rick Barnes' team continue to roll while clad in their Oklahoma City Supersonic Kevin Durant jersey.