Pinstripe Bowl Ranking: Variety of Opinions on Boston College’s Game
By Joe Micik
As is frequently the case at this time of year, college football writers organize the bowl games by a number of factors. Where has the Pinstripe Bowl ranking fallen?
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The most common one we see is “watchability” — in other words, how interesting the game appears to be via the eyeball test, whether or not it will be a game you interrupt your Christmastime visits with Aunt Tilly and your cousins to go watch in the other room, or if the mere sight will bore you to tears. Some others simply rank on games with the best teams.
Many Boston College fans are of the belief that the Pinstripe Bowl features a fairly even matchup between the Eagles and the Penn State Nittany Lions; therefore, the Pinstripe Bowl should be uniformly decent. This is not so.
In fact, opinions on how “watchable” this game will be vary greatly.
Pinstripe Bowl Ranking: 247 Sports
"13. Pinstripe Bowl – BOSTON COLLEGE vs. PENN STATE: The Lions entered the year with a bowl ban, but the sanctions were lifted during the season and now James Franklin’s team can go bowling. This is a nice matchup of traditionally strong programs in the Northeast, and they are playing in New York.Ranking the college football bowl games from no. 1 to No. 38 (247 Sports, Kevin Ryan)"
Nice, except it only makes mention of Boston College indirectly and in passing. Like we said here yesterday, we are the sideshow in this bowl.
Pinstripe Bowl Ranking: Awful Announcing
"18 — Pinstripe Bowl: In the early 1980s, these schools made college football in the Northeast worth watching. They meet in New York, a perfect setting for Penn State’s return to a bowl game after NCAA sanctions. Boston College has overachieved under coach Steve Addazio. A boisterous crowd should be on hand in Yankee Stadium, enhancing the spectacle of Nittany Lions-Eagles.2014-2015 Bowl Watchability Rankings (Awful Announcing, Matt Zemek)"
It’s nice for our team to be noticed, and not only that, for someone out there to recognize that the Eagles and Nittany Lions actually have a good amount of history considering they never played in the same conference. There will also be the aforementioned boisterous crowd, which of course will probably be mostly white-clad, but maroon and gold will be present in numbers.
And then there’s this one…
Pinstripe Bowl Ranking: CBS Sports
"31 — Pinstripe Bowl: The same situation as the Quick Lane Bowl, with a mediocre ACC team taking on a mediocre Big Ten team. This one should be ugly. Close, but ugly.The Top 36: Your 2014-15 Bowl Rankings (CBS Sports, Tom Fornelli)"
Meanwhile, the Bahamas Bowl between Western Kentucky and Central Michigan is admittedly ranked ahead of the Pinstripe Bowl because it is played in a tropical paradise. Perhaps if this game were played in say, Barbados, that might be good for 20th as opposed to 31st.
This has to be a reaction to the defensive nature of the two teams, in that it is expected to be a low-scoring game. Maybe that does make it “ugly,” but they are just about evenly matched.
Clearly we take these things too seriously.