Toilet Bowls

Roadkill Randomness prevails tonight--just a few things to get of my chest, along with the 10 pounds of turkey I feel to be lugging along with every step I take in the malaise that comes with the traditional post-Thanksgiving hangover:

* Need more proof that the Bowl Coalition should be flushed down the nearest toilet ASAP? Two words: Notre Dame. Two more words: Texas Tech.

Ugh. Lou Holtz and the Irish should be ashamed of themselves, stealing easy money and the national television spotlight like so many Bonnies and Clyde that have roamed the Arizona desert before them.

Actually, wait a second. Flip over to our "SportsWire" page, and find the quote Holtz has about how good he thinks his team is. That's OK, I can wait....

....It would be comical if Holtz didn't actually believe this, but I'm afraid he does. Pity, that. The perfect match, of course, for his struggling bunch of youngsters would be the Red Raiders from the soon-to-be-defunct (and thank goodness for that, bastion of academic integrity as it was) Southwest Conference.

A "major" bowl featuring 6-4-1 vs. 6-5? Would have been better than sullying the January 2 scene further by splitting them apart. Instead, now we get three different undefeated teams playing none of each other, #9 Kansas State exiled to the Aloha Bowl, and even worse, Colorado--which, for my money, is better than all of them, one off-day at Nebraska notwithstanding--reliving a familiar rivalry at the expense of the nation's sanity.

You know, every year I throw a "BowlFest" party back home, offering friends a true overdose of college football's best and brightest. Why? What is wrong with me?

* Give Harvard men's soccer coach Stephen Locker credit for some "interview integrity" after his team lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament two weekends ago to Boston University, the number-one ranked team in the nation.

One of the Boston area media types asked him if he thought the Terriers could go all the way. Now, as any good "Crash" Davis disciple could tell you, the easy out to this question is to say, "Of course.

We lost to a very good team today, and I think there's every reason that they can win the title," or some other glittering generalities along those lines.

Nope--he was hesitant to even pencil B.U. into his Final Four, saying that there isn't anyone on the Terriers' squad who really "takes charge" during games, a sound judgment borne out by Brown's 3.2 upset win over B.U. Sunday here at Ohiri Field.

Too bad that line probably never got into print, because it should have. Proof that some coaches still actually know what they're talking about.

* Yet again, it looks like some marquee names are coming down to the Soldiers' Field athletic complex... problem is, those names belong to FSPN.

Seems as though Gary Thorne and Mike Mulberry, this year's number-one NHI pairing should the season ever start, have been dished over to Bright Hockey Center to cover Brown Harvard this Saturday night on ESPN2.

If you weren't planning to go to the game itself check, maybe even if you were, find a television where you can hear these guys.

Because one of these days the station is going to come to its senses and start assigning lesser lights to Ivy League broadcasts, if it reaches out to produce them at all... and when it comes to hockey coverage, ESPN does the best job this side of Hockey Night in Canada.

As they say on Sports Center, it might happen. Heck, why not watch?