Tuesday Refugee Roundtable: Going Bowling

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Quick challenge: can you name ten bowl games, including their current corporate sponsor, that are outside the New Year’s Six/CFP playoff game bowls?

Congrats if you can…if you can’t, here’s the slate for next season:

For today’s Roundtable, what has been your best bowl experience as a Dawg fan…and what made it such a good experience? Was is the win? The ancillary festivities? The town?

Discuss.

28 thoughts on “Tuesday Refugee Roundtable: Going Bowling”

  1. Poulon Weedeater Bowl in beeeeeeee-yootiful Shreveport.

    Never went, although I think I had 7 opportunities in my four years during Goff’s reign of terror in the early 90s.

  2. Only bowl I’ve ever been to is our semifinal Rose Bowl.

    I think I picked a good one.

  4. Gator Bowl ’89, Dooley’s last game. Short drive down from St. Simons to Jacksonville with several friends and ate at Hooters before the game. Dayuuum, there was some ‘talent’ in there that night!! Michigan State had Andre Rison and Tony Mandarich. Every time we got the lead, here comes Rison running wild for a score. But, the Dawgs prevailed. Only bowl game I’ve ever attended, but it was a good one.

  5. If we’re talking just “the game” the natties in Indy and LA have to be 1 & 2 because we took the crown home. Loved that the second had no drama. We deserved a long night of validation.

    As for global experience Rose Bowl by far. It was everything. Weather was perfect. 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky and its January. Stadium and surroundings were beautiful.

    Two stealth bomber runs were surreal.

    Plus, the game was pretty awesome too. Of course, I thought we were fucked in the second quarter.

    Then Rodrigo kicked that fg and Roquan came out on a mission in the third.

    I bought natty tickets during the post game celebration.

    Holifuk what a trip.

    I always hated that the Rose was a Big10/Pac-X thing coming up. Somehow I knew that was the place you wanted to be.

    Hope we can play a natty game out there someday.

    Been to 4 Sugar Bowls and they each kinda sucked in one way or another:

    FSU game was kinda boring and I had terrible seats. Plus we’re playing for third.

    Then we play a bad high school team from some pacific island somewhere.

    Wvu in atlanta blew.

    And then this past season I went to ND game.

    The Peach Bowl win over OSU was unreal. I still can’t believe Stet did that OR that the OSU kicker choked.

    I was at the Outback down 25-0 to Purdue in the second quarter. That was pretty fun, in the end.

  7. Rose Bowl for the total experience. My son and I flew out. Not sure if is a yearly event but downtown Pasadena has a really cool auto parade the day before the game. A lot of unique rides cruising the strip. Stealth Bomber flyover was awesome. Backdrop of the San Gabriel mountains was gorgeous. Ballgame back and forth emotional roller coaster, winning in that fashion is fantastic.
    Close second 83 Sugar Bowl, no tickets , my 3 roommates and I drove to NO, thanks to an uncle he secured a Hotel room on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency, needing a key to access. We thought we were on top of the world sho’nuff country come to town. Lucked into tickets day before game. Not a win but had a blast.

  8. Liberty Bowl 2016. Kirby’s coming out party. Did I mention Cozy Corner BBQ?

  9. All of these are based on the season not the game date.

    Best:

    Peach Bowl 2022 vs. the Suckeyes for me is still the best football game I have attended in person.

    We had a fun trip for the 2012 bowl game in Orlando – that team deserved a better landing spot than that.

    2002 Sugar Bowl was a cathartic for Dawg fans after the 20 year drought.

    Worst:
    1989 Peach Bowl – Fulton County Stadium was a depressing spot.

    2018 Sugar Bowl – the team acted like they didn’t want to be there and our crowd acted like that, too.

    2013 Gator Bowl – rained like hell and once again, we acted like we didn’t want to be there

    1995 Peach Bowl – typical One Play Away Ray Goff era game

    Games I wished I attended:
    The 2 CFP championship wins – I had tickets to LA but could not rationalize the airfare. My nephew who lives out there bought my tickets from me.

    1980 Sugar Bowl – the other natty

    Rose Bowl 2017 – nothing else to be said

    Sugar Bowl 2007 – that team was just nasty by that time of the year

  10. Best – Indy – after 41 years of wilderness arriving in the promise land was incredible.
    Worst – tie 2005 peach bowl ,2001 music shitty bowl. It was cold af in Nashville watching bad football.

  11. Whatever bowl experience you consider your best today is unfortunately the best you will have in your lifetime. The Playoffs made bowls meaningless consolation prizes few players even want. And the playoffs themselves can’t really be considered “bowls” per se. Except for the natty, it’s win or go home so the experience is completely different. The championship game can rightfully still be called a bowl. But gone are the days when winning your bowl, even a major game, didn’t necessarily guarantee anything. We had to wait for the final rankings to come out. The whole process was entirely different. But, college football is professional football today. I’m glad I got to experience it when I did. Hey, you kids get off my lawn!

  12. I purposely ignore the sponsors. I’d rather remember the original names.
    Sugar, Rose, Cotton, Orange, Gators, Peach, Citrus, Independence, Hall of Fame, Motor City, Liberty, Holiday, Sun, Fiesta, Magnolia. All these come to mind right now (yeah, I know you said non-playoff bowls).

    • 1980 Sugar Bowl, 2018 Rose Bowl, and 2022 Natty are my top three attended though I’ve been to many of the ones I listed. Never been to the Orange Bowl, though.

  13. Old Citrus Bowl, 1993, with my daughter who was in high school. First Bowl Game for both of us. Had seats next to the Redcoats and the Ohio State band was directly across the field. Lots of wonderful music from both sides. Got to see Script Ohio live. Exciting game. Garrison Hurst’s last game as a Dawg. And, Oh Yes, Herbstreit lost! Had a really good time.

  15. Rose Bowl hands down was the best bowl experience. Weather for both Natty’s was crap, even if they outcome was amazing.

    Worst bowl experience has to be the 2010 Liberty Bowl, Georgia vs Central Florida Community college, we looked like crap, Aaron Murray wore scuba gloves as it was to be cold and rainy… Ugly loss against a weaker team, and then poured rain as we left the stadium… just awful.

    • A “friend” gave my wife and I tickets to that game since UGA ended up going to it. (I live in Memphis.) Our seats were smack in the middle of a large group of former UCF players who had been drinking pregame, and had no intentions of slowing down. I’m pretty sure my wife kept me from getting beaten up several times that night. Rained like hell on the way back to the car. I felt sorry for all those UGA fans who stuck with the team to the miserable end only to be thoroughly soaked on the way back to their cars. Laughed about what that meant for the UCF presentation. A very Hemingway ending to that season.

  16. Rose Bowl 2018. I was already on vacation with my family out there so in a good mood. We lucked into face value 6th row tickets that turned out to be the side where Jake made the block and Sony ran it in for the win. The pregame was fun, the weather was perfect, we met friends before and after in downtown Pasadena. Other than the long meandering walk to town that involved navigating a freeway overpass, it could not have been better.

  18. Gator Bowl, circa 1987-88, a shootout with Michigan State. It was Andre Rison versus our whole team, and he almost pulled it off. Almost. May have been Dooley’s final game? – PDawg30577

  19. Anyone who doesn’t say the Rose Bowl didn’t go to the Rose Bowl.

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