VIOLET HILL – Since my visit to south Louisiana forced me to watch cartoons rather than sports, I’ve been binging on what I missed. I hear so many people complain how there are too many bowls, most of the teams aren’t very good, the only game that matters is the national championship game and blah blah blah. But I don’t see how anyone can complain about continuous college football games on the tube for better than two straight weeks. Would you rather watch the Oprah Winfrey Show or one of those great movies on Lifetime?

I woke up this morning, flipped the TV on and at 10 a.m. I watched the kickoff of the Outback Bowl which faced Florida against Iowa. It seemed like a good matchup on paper, but didn’t end up being a very competitive game. But who cares? Show me two top 25 college football teams at 10 in the morning any day of the week and I will watch it. In fact, show me a Pop Warner football game at 10 in the morning and I will watch it before I flip on 20-year-old reruns of Little House on the Prairie.

But the great thing today about waking up and watching that game was I didn’t even have to watch the Outback Bowl, there was another choice just a few clicks away. I just switched on over to FOX and guess what, another two top 25 teams facing off in the Cotton Bowl. And this game was no blowout. Texas Tech’s explosive offense ran into a brick wall when they went up against Alabama today. The Red Raiders’ average offensive output for this season was more than 40 points before today. And how many points did they score? 10. But that wasn’t the most amazing thing about the Cotton Bowl. The ending was what made skipping breakfast worthwhile. The ugliest field goal I have ever seen (With the exception of the field goal the Texans kicker seemed to intentionally blow a few weeks ago. Congratulations Houston, you now have the rights to Reggie Bush promising one of the best players ever to come out of college will spend his days on an awful team in relative obscurity.) won the game for the Crimson Tide. It didn’t look like it would fly more than 10 yards, but somehow, someway the 45 yard kick barely slipped between the uprights to lift ‘Bama to victory. It looked like me trying to hit a 2-iron, and trust me, that isn't a pretty sight.

Yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year. The time of year when a college student has no worries at all, a sports fan has a smorgasbord of selection on the tube and a fat guy has an unlimited supply to leftovers. Sounds like a pretty good month to me.

But, just when I thought I was in for a whole day of bowl action, I realize the two BCS games on tonight are on ABC. Why’s that a problem? Because it’s the only channel my parents don’t get. In Violet Hill, antenna reception is almost impossible – this situation forced my parents into getting DirecTV years ago. For all of the big 5 networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and yes, PBS) we receive the New York and Los Angeles stations except for ABC. Apparently KAIT, the ABC affiliate out of Jonesboro, has the right to provide us with their quality programming. But DirecTV doesn’t offer it on the dish, so we have been left to naught. My parents even wrote to KAIT asking for permission to receive ABC from an alternate market, and they denied. Needless to say, I’m not their biggest fan. From what I have seen of the station, their news anchors talk like they eat raccoon, armadillo and opossum for their daily three meals, and their reporters are as good-looking as roadkill they might eat.

So as I write this column, two college football heavyweights are dueling on primetime TV and I’m watching the nightly news. Good thing I got my football fix this morning, or I might have hitch-hiked back to Conway to catch the games because my car isn’t scheduled to be fixed until sometime tomorrow. And that might not have turned out alright. I’ve never hitch-hiked before, but I’m pretty sure I would have either gotten abducted by Martians, hit by a car or winked at by some KAIT news anchor before I made it down to Conway.

But hopefully I will be back into civilization by tomorrow night’s bowl game. Penn State against Florida State should be well worth watching. But, like I said, Arkansas State and Southern Miss doesn’t bother me either – you never know when you’ll have a finish like the Nebraska–Michigan game or get to see a streaker before the cameras turn away. I bet you've never seen that in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.