So come join us at the altar of GAMBLOR before it’s too late and the clutches of the offseason ensnares us all.

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The post HLS Podcast: Remaining 2019 Bowl Picks (Dec 30 – Jan 6) appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

It’s our final chance to enjoy some final moments of joy in this wonderful and supremely stupid sport that we all love. So, in the spirit of the season, we want to make sure that you catch every single moment.

Some of you, like yours truly, might be stuck working during some of these sublime exceptions. Others might need a friendly reminder during the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season of when it’s time to take a step back and settle in with some college football cheer instead.

With all of that in mind, I bring you the 2019-2020 College Football Bowl Calendar, embedded below (and available to add to your Google Calendar) and can be downloaded in iCal format for use in other applications.

College Football Bowls Calendar

The post 2019-2020 College Football Bowl Calendar appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Notre Dame’s contract with the ACC, plus trying to figure out conference tie-ins with the New Year’s Six can make everything clear as mud. With that in mind, we have a handy guide that we’re going to keep here at HLS that details every possible bowl bid for Notre Dame.

I regret to inform y’all that it will be easier for the Irish to make the college football playoff this year than to sneak into the Bahamas Bowl.

In all seriousness, with the Fiesta and Peach, two bowls with no conference tie-ins, hosting semifinals in the playoff, New Year’s Six locations are relegated to the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl.

The Orange Bowl, as detailed in our handy guide, has the ACC locked in no matter what, meaning ND has to be ranked above the highest ranked B1G and SEC teams not in the playoffs, the Rose Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. Yes, the Orange Bowl is the only bowl that we can’t swipe from the ACC. It’s the price of independence. Needless to say, quite a bit of chaos needs to go down for this to occur. It’s not impossible, but not likely.

That leaves the Cotton Bowl as the only other chance and with only one at-large slot available as the other will be taken by the highest ranked Group of Five (remember, the Peach and Fiesta are playoff games, so nowhere else for them to go). For the Irish to land there, it will be a matter of climbing the rankings.

How high? Well, top-12 is a good watermark. The purpose of the New Year’s Six is to feature the twelve best teams, hence why you hear that number thrown around. However, with the very real possibility that the Orange Bowl will have an ACC team outside that ranking (unless Clemson falls on their face), the Irish probably need to crack the top ten again to feel safe.

That scenario is more likely than an Orange Bowl bid, but still far from a guarantee. Then again, that statement is spoke in a world that assumes college football doesn’t have a crazy November and everything happens as planned. We all know better.

But still, the surest way of entertaining these thoughts is to, again, beat Navy, Boston College, and Stanford. Otherwise, this is all silly and our bowl bid guide will then have to be used in much sadder ways because we are afraid the Camping World Bowl is now out of reach.

Let’s not do that. Let’s just win and let everyone else participate in chaos.

The post Notre Dame, New Year’s Six, and ACC Bowl Bids: A Definitive Guide appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Dec 30, 2014; Nashville, TN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish wide receiver C.J. Prosise (20) carries the ball in the first quarter against the Louisiana State Tigers at LP Field. Notre Dame won 31-28. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

At 2-4, the Irish are long shots to make a bowl game. Can they make it to six wins to become bowl eligible? And if so, should they even go to a bowl?

Stanford, Miami and Virginia Tech are all tough opponents, but they’re also home games. I watched Stanford closely last Saturday. Christian McCaffrey is banged up. The offense is struggling. The defense doesn’t appear great either. Washington State largely dominated the Cardinal in Palo Alto.

I think the turnaround begins Saturday in South Bend. Then you get Miami after a bye week. There’s added time to tweak the scheme, work out any injury issues and recharge. Miami will have a little extra time off too; they play Virginia Tech on Oct. 20. After playing Florida State, UNC and the Hokies, we’ll know more about the ‘Canes as that games gets closer.

I don’t see Notre Dame losing to Navy or Army. Yes, they are both much better. Yes, Navy just beat Houston. I just don’t see it. Notre Dame has too much offense right now and they have done a good job defending against the option for a number of years.

That leaves us with Virginia Tech at home on Senior Day and the road trip to USC. Those will be easier to forecast after we get through the next two. With everything we know now, I’m saying Notre Dame finds their way to the postseason.

SHOULD A 6-6 IRISH TEAM GO TO A BOWL?

Notre Dame #2 Chris Brown completes a catch in the third quarter during the annual Pinstripe Bowl football game at Yankee Stadium on December 28, 2013. (Paul J. Bereswill)

Many long-time fans who do not like the bowl system or the “minor” bowls might argue that the bowl game is irrelevant if the Irish aren’t in the playoff or playing on New Year’s Day. There is some precedent for this. In Lou Holtz’s final season, the 8-3 Irish opted not to play in a bowl game. They were roundly criticized for doing this. To some, it smacked of the very arrogance that has caused some to hate the Irish.

I would argue that going to a bowl every year is a must for a number of reasons.

First, accepting a bowl invitation allows you 15 extra days of practice. Given the struggles this team has had, and the youth now playing on defense, any extra practice is welcome. Second, while I don’t subscribe to paying players at the NCAA level, I do support the idea that the bowl game is a reward for the players. It is one of the perks they get. Whether it is playing in a warm climate (not likely this year) or grabbing some bowl game swag, it is a nice reward for the hours and hours they put in.

Finally, it helps with recruiting.  Some may argue, how does a 6-6 bowl appearance help with recruiting? I would add the same way that a 4-8 no bowl season hurts recruiting? So with that said, can the Irish actually find a way into the bowl season.

SHADES OF KELLY’S FIRST YEAR

At 2-4, no major outlets have them in heading into Week 7. But, if you recall, the 2010 Irish looked finished at 4-5 after a disastrous home loss to Tulsa and Utah and USC remaining. They ended the season on a 4-0 run and crushed Miami in the Sun Bowl.

I think the end of this season looks like 2010. Kelly seems extremely determined to fix this thing. He better….or the buzzards will likely be circling this offseason.

The post Debating a Bowl Game for Staggering Irish appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

And while we’ve certainly heard that teams lose money going to these games, there is evidence that said loss could very well be an exercise in interpretive accounting. That study was done last year before bowl payouts to conferences ballooned even further this season allowing teams in the Power 5, like Oregon, to net a pretty penny. Teams in the Group of 5, who lie outside that money-printing enterprise, aren’t as fortunate.

But what should we make of declining attendance numbers for the majority of the bowls? According to that study, 21 of the 35 returning bowl games saw a decrease in ticket sales. This includes the Championship game, the Rose bowl which hosted a semifinal, and three of the four non-playoff New Year’s Six bowls. Are these bowls also “struggling” to make ends meet?

That answer most likely lies in either further interpretive accounting or how you view a potential return on investment as TV exposure for these games sky-rocketed. 18 of the 35 returning bowl games saw a boost in TV viewers with the biggest beneficiaries being the three playoff games. The biggest losers in the TV ratings battle are the non-playoff NY6 bowls; however, they certainly know their ratings boon is just around the corner and soon they will rule the New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day bowl renaissance.

I’ve compiled this data into a single Google spreadsheet (use the filter views for sorting) if you want to take a deeper dive into these numbers. The most interesting thing that I took out the data was that 10 bowls suffered the double whammy of both suffering attendance and declining viewership while 8 bowls saw both boosted. That means the remaining 17 games had at least one or the other go up, meaning that the vast majority of these returning games (over 70%) are seeing some benefit.

However, there’s no doubt that the shift is towards TV. A deeper dive shows that only 6 of the 17 bowls that lost viewers lost over one million viewers. Three of those bowls are NY6 bowls whom, as I stated earlier, will certainly have their moment of skyrocketing ratings once their turn to host a playoff game happens. That leaves only three real “losers” in this game (with the Citrus Bowl becoming the biggest loser of them all this year).

The bowl season is a made for TV enterprise. Travel and ticket costs seem to escalate every season, especially for the bigger games, but that didn’t stop this year’s national title game from featuring Uber providing helicopter transportation to the game and champagne at the concession stands. I’ve been ridiculously fortunate enough to go to two of these games, one to support Notre Dame and one to support my sister’s school, Auburn, with my family. While each trip was a bucket-list-cross-off spectacle, after the adrenaline wore off and the reality of the costs hit home, there was also a feeling that we were a touch insane for doing these trips (perhaps the results of the game factored into this as well). The appeal of the couch and the TV grows every year.

While any logical thought in my head can go flying out the window when it comes to travelling to watch Notre Dame, this year, with a wedding and honeymoon to finish paying off and a baby on the way, logic won. New Year’s in Nashville sounded like a great trip, especially with accessible and affordable tickets, until I actually budgeting the whole affair.

So on my couch I sat, observing the made-for-TV bowl empire (and perhaps far more than my wife wanted me to). Despite the money grab and worries in the back of my mind that this is all a huge bubble wasting to burst, I can’t help but enjoy it every year. It’s my favorite time of the football season, allowing me to watch games carefully spaced out so I can see just about every single one with ease and not miss a potential crazy result from two teams fighting to make some kind of a national splash. It feels like college football was made for this and justifies the empty seats I see many of the shots of the lesser bowl games.

ESPN and the ridiculous numbers that they pull in agree.

The Roundup

Shameless promotion time! Two things. First, Friday Roundup on the radio tonight from 6-7pm. Tune in! Also, Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching. Get your flower game in order, support a Notre Dame alumnus run business, and support HLS by ordering form The Bouqs. $40 for a single Bouq (that’s a dozen flowers in an arrangement, including roses) with free shipping and no upcharges. I use them all the time now and the wife loves them as they last seemingly forever in comparison to anything else that I’ve bought elsewhere. I think we’re almost to the point in which I might get reprimanded for buying anywhere else.

I don’t think I will ever stop enjoying reactions to people visiting Jerry World for the first time. Spencer Hall and Holly Anderson took their first steps inside the Death Star in my backyard and did their best to process the excess.

Notre Dame’s in the top ten! Well, in at least one way-too-soon preseason ranking. They fall just outside the top ten in another and barely in the top 25 in another one (and Stanford #4 here…are you high?!). The final 2014 rankings weren’t as kind as Notre Dame was just on the outside looking in. The final F+ rankings were by far the harshest, but hey, we ended the season beating the #16 team in those rankings, so we got something to hold on to.

Should they stay or should they go? That seemed to be the biggest game this week. For the Irish, the big news this week was the return of O-lineman Ronnie Stanley. Outside South Bend, Cardale Jones had a huge presser that trolled the world as an expected NFL announcement turned into a announcement that he’s going to play school another year (in all seriousness, talk about coming a loooong way from that unfortunate tweet). The fastest human bowling ball alive, Dak Prescott, will return to Mississippi State. Finally, Heisman winner, Marcus Mariotta, will depart for the NFL.

The NCAA is rethinking pot. Well, that’s not exactly what they said, but let’s be honest the “we’re suspending players for smoking pot who reside in a state in which pot is legal for the national title game” probably played into this.

And now your moments of Nix… Yep, moments. Here’s some gold this week from the Twitters:

TROLLOLOLOL. pic.twitter.com/Cr8bKSe6qN

— Jim Weber (@JimMWeber) January 13, 2015

I'm a huge Michigan fan. #FiveWordsToRuinADate

— Notre Dame Bookstore (@HammesNotreDame) January 14, 2015

There are some dandy Twitter avatars among ND footballers, but Joe- excuse me, DARTH Schmidt might have the greatest. pic.twitter.com/jxNWTM7OTz

— One Foot Down (@OneFootDown) January 13, 2015

The Booze

Now that I’m back to (almost) full health, I have realized that so far this winter, I have not really partaken in any stouts, which seems like a borderline crime. I intend to rectify this immediately*.

*Read: after I go off the air tonight because drinking and driving is bad, y’all.

The post Friday Roundup: The “Made for TV” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

To bowl or not to bowl, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The injuries and defeats of a season lost,
Or to take the field against a sea of troubles
And by playing end them. To quit—to rest,
No more; and by a rest to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That losses are heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To quit, to rest;
To rest, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that offseason what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this field of turf,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of odds great and small.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of loss,
Th’rival’s blowout, the proud fan’s contumely,
The pangs of FGs missed, the holder’s drop,
The failures on offense, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When team itself might their quietus make
With a bowl rejection? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a lost season,
But that the dread of something in that leave,
The unplay’d contest, from whose kickoff
No player can restart, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus disillusion does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

~From Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1…slightly modified…

The Roundup

UAB will be shutting its football doors. There are some that think that there is a vendetta that involves Bear Braynt’s son (seriously), but to finish pissing on their ashes it appears no bowl will take them either.

It also appears that a B1G team will be left out of the bowl shuffle. Not by choice, but because Delany couldn’t negotiate enough spots.

Jameis Winston got to share his side of the story. It was also full of constant mentions of the alleged victim’s name (name is redacted in link) and he compared his situation to being raped because that’s just about par for the course at this point.

The first two big coaching vacancies are filled. Florida hired Colorado State head coach, Jim McElwain, in what has to be the most public search ever which was probably a move to reduce the huge buyout. Nebraska has also hired Oregon State head coach, Mike Riley. Michigan is still vacant. Commence snickering now.

And now your moment of Nix… Speaking of Michigan…

The Booze

I bought a new bottle of bourbon last week. I wasn’t expecting it to be my coping mechanism after last weekend, but, hey, here I am.

Anyways, I’ll be enjoying my liquid medicine while cheering for all kinds of chaos this weekend.

The post Friday Roundup: The “To Bowl or Not to Bowl” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Now, the situation isn’t as simple as the six “Tier 1” bowls all throwing their names into a hat. Nothing ever is when it comes to the bowls. I’ve done a bit of digging around to try and paint the best picture that I can, and this post will detail what I’ve found. To paint an easier picture, I will list all bowl options, even those that Notre Dame will not be eligible for.

Playoffs & New Year’s Six Bowls

Bowls: Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta, Peach

How the Irish get in: The college football playoff committee will makes these selections. As a safe rule of thumb, the Irish need to land in the top 10 to get into these games. So, yeah, not happening this season.

Any other special conditions? Yes. If ND is the highest ranked, non-playoff team out of the SEC or B1G, they earn an Orange Bowl bid. However, ND can only appear in the Orange Bowl twice over the current twelve year contract (when it is a non-playoff game).

ACC “Top Tier” Bowls

Bowls: Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl (vs. SEC) & Russell Athletic Bowl (vs. Big XII)

How the Irish get in: The playoff committee doesn’t put ND in a NY6 Bowl and one of the following is true:

• Of all ACC teams, Notre Dame is ranked the highest
• Of all ACC teams, Notre Dame is within one win of the best win/loss records

Any other special conditions? Yes. The Citrus Bowl can only select an ACC team if a B1G team is in the Orange Bowl. That likely won’t happen this season based on projections that I’ve seen thus far. Even if FSU falls to Georgia Tech this likely won’t happen. Of course, chaos can still reign. Even if it does, there are too many 9-win teams in the ACC for ND to crack into these two bowls this season. I would assume there is another maximum limit for ND in these bowls, but I didn’t see any.

ACC Tier 1 Bowls

Bowls: Belk Bowl (vs. SEC), Sun Bowl (vs. Pac 12), Pinstripe Bowl (vs. B1G), Music City Bowl (vs. SEC), TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (vs. SEC)

How the Irish get in: Notre Dame lands in a pool of the ACC 3-6. If any of the bowls in this tier desire to select Notre Dame, they will enter a drawing. The winner of this lottery will win the right to select Notre Dame for their game.

Based on all projections that I’ve read thus far, the only way ND would’ve landed outside of this pool this season is if they ended 6-6. With 7-5, and the ACC having a down season overall, the Irish can be considered for this pool. The Irish will likely end up somewhere here.

Any other special conditions? Yes and this is where things get messy. The Music City and TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowls aren’t ACC exclusive. They also have a contractual obligation to select a B1G team three times in six years. This means only four ACC teams (Notre Dame included) will end up in four of these bowls every year. Further, it appears that Notre Dame can only be selected by each bowl once, with that count only resetting once all bowls have had the chance to select Notre Dame.

For this reason, I seriously doubt that the Pinstripe Bowl blows their single ND bid for the foreseeable future by taking the chance on inviting the Irish to their game two years in a row. As far as teams that are interested, Irish Illustrated noted the following last night.

Sun Bowl rep told Irish Illustrated that it wants Notre Dame back in El Paso this year, likely against Washington or Utah.

— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) December 2, 2014

Also spoke with a Belk Bowl rep who indicated they would likely put in to select ND as well. ACC “Tier 1” bowls have lottery for Irish.

— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) December 2, 2014

They didn’t note comment from the other two bowls which have B1G tie-ins (Music City & Gator), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to throw their names into the ND selection hate, especially with the B1G having very little in desirable options this season.

ACC Tier 2 Bowls

Bowls: Military Bowl (vs. AAC), Independence Bowl (vs. SEC), Quick Lane Bowl (vs. B1G)

How the Irish get in: Finish 6-6 during a season or have the poor fortune of finishing 7-5 when the ACC has a stronger season.

Any special conditions? I’d assume it’s the same as the Tier 1 bowls. I honestly didn’t find a thing on this.

The Last Resort

Bowls: Bitcoin Bowl (vs. AAC/C-USA), Birmingham Bowl (vs. SEC/AAC)

How the Irish get in: Finish 6-6 in such a terrible fashion that even the Tier 2 bowls run for cover and avoid ND like the plague.

Any special conditions? These bowls pretty much hope that Notre Dame doesn’t decide to just forgo a bowl by falling this low.

The post Notre Dame to Be Prize in ACC Bowl Lottery appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.