Dave Martin / AP file

Nick Saban and Alabama are certainly a worthy opponent for Texas in the BCS national championship. The issue with the game is Ohio State's fans, NBCSports.com contributor Michael Ventre writes.

Humanitarian Bowl:
Bowling Green vs. Idaho, Dec. 30, in Boise, Idaho: It’s hard to watch a bowl game when you can’t even wrap your head around why it’s being played. The game is sponsored by Roady’s, a company that operates truck stops across the country. So where does the “humanitarian” part come in? Is it humanitarian to offer a trucker warmed-over chicken fried-steak at 3 a.m. and a grimy public restroom? For that matter, what’s humanitarian about subjecting fans to a game between the third-place team in the MAC East (Bowling Green, 7-5) and the fourth-place team in the WAC (Idaho, 7-5)? I’d rather have the chicken-fried steak.

GMAC Bowl:
Central Michigan vs. Troy, Jan. 6, in Mobile, Ala.: This should be a fine contest. Both went 8-0 in conference play. Central Michigan went 11-2 overall, Troy was 9-3. The beef here is about scheduling. The bowls are supposed to build and become more important as they move toward the BCS national championship game Jan. 7. This is like sitting down at a fancy French restaurant to have a seven-course gourmet meal and somewhere in there they drop a corndog on your plate.

The ugly
Eaglebank Bowl:
UCLA vs. Temple, Dec. 29, in Washington, D.C.: O.K., here’s the pitch: Let’s bring UCLA all the way from Los Angeles, where it’s sunny, to an outdoor stadium in D.C., where the temperature at game time probably will be in the teens. (And, by the way, UCLA gets in only because Army lost to Navy.) Then let’s pair UCLA with Temple, a school that has no football following whatsoever. So it’ll be a handful of UCLA fans and a sprinkling of Temple stalwarts – and zero interest among the locals — in a stadium that seats 45,000 at night in the dead of winter. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get sleet!

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