Courtesy the North County Times

(December 31, 2010) How much is too much? Ratings numbers from Sunday seem to indicate 35 college football games are over the top.

When Sunday night's Vikings-Eagles NFL game was postponed to Tuesday because of blizzard conditions in Philadelphia, I figured the Little Caesars Bowl that same night would do giant ratings numbers for ESPN.

I was dead wrong.

The game, pitting Florida International (6-6) and Toledo (8-4), did a 1.6 rating with 1.629 million viewers.

Considering half the nation was snowed in, considering it was the only football telecast airing at the time, those are horrible numbers. In fact, they're down 48 percent from last year's Little Caesars Bowl that matched Marshall and Ohio University.

Seems like you can't fool the public. A bad game, matching schools that 90 percent of you didn't know played football, didn't exactly capture the imagination of the nation.

Three national NFL games on Sunday afternoon posted big numbers. The Giants-Packers on Fox had 12 million viewers, the Jets-Bears on CBS had 11.8 and the Redskins-Jaguars on Fox had 6.8 million viewers.

It's hard for me to say college players, their fans and families shouldn't experience postseason play. I've always been an advocate of the more, the merrier when it comes time to postseason play.

And I enjoy watching the games. With the nature of my job, I work from home a lot during the day.

As I write this column, I'm watching Maryland (8-4) and East Carolina (6-6) in the Military Bowl. And I finished writing while watching the Armed Forces Bowl ---- Army (6-5) vs. SMU (7-6).

But really, 35 bowl games? Why are games being shown at 12:30 p.m. on a Wednesday and 9 a.m. on a Thursday? Because there aren't enough quality time slots for 35 games.

This year, 14 teams with 6-6 records have played or will play in bowl games, including Washington in San Diego's beloved Holiday Bowl. And Arizona went into Wednesday's Alamo Bowl with a four-game losing streak.

The ESPN family of networks ---- ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU ---- have 33 of the 35 bowl games. CBS has Friday's Sun Bowl, matching Notre Dame (7-5) and Miami (7-5). Fox has the Jan. 7 Cotton Bowl, a game that pits LSU (9-2) vs. Texas A&M (9-3).

With so many games, ESPN obviously struggled for time slots, thus the Little Caesars Bowl was a throwaway last Sunday against the Vikings-Eagles. Then the weather hit Philadelphia, and college football was in the spotlight.

The game, however, laid an egg.

And can the bowl season get any longer? Bowl games started Dec. 18; the BCS Championship is Jan. 10.

It used to be Jan. 1 was the grand finale of the bowl season. Now, New Year's Day is just an appetizer.

There are seven bowl games after Jan. 1, including the Godaddy.com Bowl, matching Middle Tennessee State (6-6) and Miami-Ohio (9-4), on Jan. 6 and the Compass Bowl, pitting Pittsburgh (7-5) and Kentucky (6-6), on Jan. 8.

Come on. Outside of the middle of Tennessee, parts of Ohio, Pittsburgh and Kentucky, Who's going to watch those games? New Year's Day is still special with six games, but five teams that play on Jan. 1 have 7-5 records.

There are some interesting games on New Year's Day ---- Michigan State (11-1) vs. Alabama (9-3) at 10 a.m. in the Capital One Bowl, TCU (12-0) vs. Wisconsin (11-1) at 2 p.m. in the Rose Bowl and Oklahoma (11-2) vs. Connecticut (8-4) in the Fiesta Bowl at 5:30 p.m.

The Fiesta is interesting only to see how badly the Sooners can whip Connecticut and embarrass the Big East Conference.

The Jan. 3 Orange Bowl, pitting Virginia Tech (11-2) vs. Stanford (11-1), is well worth watching, as is the Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl ---- Ohio State (11-1) vs. Arkansas (10-2), the Jan. 7 Cotton Bowl ---- LSU (10-2) vs. Texas A&M (9-2), and even the Jan. 9 Fight Hunger Bowl ---- Boston College (7-5) vs. Nevada (12-1).

And the BCS Championship game, matching Auburn (13-0) vs. Oregon (12-0), should be a monster and generate enormous ratings.

Still, that game shouldn't be played 10 days into the new year.

More bowls

If it makes a difference, here are the announcing crews for some of the top bowls:

< Rose: Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Erin Andrews.

< Fiesta: Sean McDonough, Matt Millen and Heather Cox.

< Orange: Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, Jon Gruden and Michele Tafoya ---- ESPN's "Monday Night Football" crew.

< Sugar: Brad Nessler, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe.

< Cotton: Kenny Albert and Darryl Johnston.

< BCS Championship: Musburger, Herbstreit, Andrews and Tom Rinaldi.

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