Boca Raton Bowl

Another new bowl, y'all!  Yes, it's a real game on a real football field with a half time show devoted to the all time great Boca Raton sport of shuffleboard.  Let's go!!

This logo has a lot of white space. Like the extra large parking spots at the Del Boca Vista retirement community.

Nobody's keeping out the fans of the MAC and C-USA. Welcome to Boca!

Marshall vs. Northern Illinois

I was kind of hoping Marshall might get a better match-up following a season where their fans bellyached they should be higher ranked, some going as far as saying they should be in national title consideration until their season went up in smoke with a 67-66 loss to Western Kentucky.  If it weren't for that game, the Herd would in the Fiesta Bowl instead of Boise State. 

Oh well, at least this was a game between conference champs - only the playoff games can boast that among the other 38 bowl games.

I watched all of this one although I was busy with doing laundry (again) and making my favorite holiday treat, Emeril's spicy pecans.  Here's the recipe if you'd like to make them.

Game started off pretty even, each team trading scores.  Then the Rakeem Cato show kicked in.  Marshall scored touchdowns while NIU was kicking field goals.  You know how that usually works out.

Great game for a second bowl in a row for Cato who had five touchdowns. Well earned MVP, some question if he's an NFL caliber quarterback because of his size.  Can he possibly be worse than some of the back-ups some teams carry?  Good Lord, Tennessee doesn't have a good quarterback on their team and still employ Charlie Whitehurst.

This was a game where the score doesn't indicate that the game was closer than it actually was.  NIU had five trips into the red zone and settled for field goals.  That was the difference.

Marshall 52  Northern Illinois 23

Notes

-The powers that be need to stop making new bowls.  These two teams could have found spots elsewhere.  This game evidently came about because it was played at Florida Atlantic's new field and the man who started the FAU program from scratch, Howard Schnellenberger, had a goal of bringing a bowl game to the stadium.

Sports need more guys like Schnellenberger.

-It was really humid in Boca Raton.  Check out Marshall coach Doc Holliday.

 Dude was sweating.  He went through 174 shirts in this game.

-What did I eat:  Some of my spicy pecans.  Seriously, you need to make these.

-Bowl swag:  This game has not announced what players get to take home, but I'm guessing soup.

Okay, enough with the old people baiting. I picked Marshall so that should boost my record to 6-1.  Fire up Boca Bowl cheerleaders!

On to tonight's second half of the doubleheader, the Poinsettia Bowl.