Now that the college football season is over, it's time to address one of the new highlights of bowl season: the winning coach of the Duke's Mayo Bowl getting bathed in the game's namesake product. Thinking that all of the bowl games should get in on the fun, here are my suggestions for what their winning coaches should have to wash out of their hair. Selections are made based on bowl name, title sponsor, location, among other things.

Myrtle Beach Bowl: sand

New Orleans Bowl: gumbo

Cure Bowl: pink lapel ribbons

New Mexico Bowl: Hatch green chili salsa

LA Bowl: half caf soy latte

Independence Bowl: jambalaya

Famous Toastery Bowl: conch chowder

Frisco Bowl: Frito pie

Boca Raton Bowl: sunscreen

Gasparilla Bowl: sarsaparilla

Birmingham Bowl: Buffalo Rock ginger ale

Camelia Bowl: white barbecue sauce

Armed Forces Bowl: SOS

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: mashed potatoes

68 Ventures Bowl: Alabama Slammer

Las Vegas Bowl: Bellagio fountain water

Hawaii Bowl: crushed pineapple

Quick Lane Bowl: 10w30 motor oil

First Responder Bowl: Betadine

Guaranteed Rate Bowl: prickly pear margarita

Military Bowl: MRE chicken a la king

Holiday Bowl: egg nog

Texas Bowl: chile con carne

Fenway Bowl: wasabi

Pinstripe Bowl: Derek Jeter cologne

Pop Tarts Bowl: piping hot strawberry jam

Alamo Bowl: Lone Star beer

Gator Bowl: Gatorade

Sun Bowl: Frosted Flakes in milk

Liberty Bowl: dry rub

Music City Bowl: Goo Goo Clusters

Arizona Bowl: cactus water

ReliaQuest Bowl: Cuban coffee

Citrus Bowl: Five Alive

Cotton Bowl: dryer lint

Peach Bowl: bellinis

Orange Bowl: orange juice, with pulp

Fiesta Bowl: Tostitos salsa (medium)

Rose Bowl: rose water

Sugar Bowl: molasses

FBS Championship: $100 bills

 In case you missed, it the USFL is coming back this year, an otherwise bright spot in our continued hellscape. At least for those of us who will watch pretty much any football.

The league is starting off with eight teams, all of which are using the names, logos, etc. of teams from the original incarnation. Which I will now rank in order of preference, because I didn't have the chance to do so in 1983.

8. Philadelphia Stars. It seems odd that I'm putting the most successful USFL franchise last, but it lands on the bottom for being a generic name with a generic logo. It looks like they've made minor tweaks to the Stars word art, and they've dumped the old gold color in favor of both orange and gold. None of which helps.

7. New Jersey Generals. I don't like the changes they've made to the logo. I find the stars too close together. Also not a fan that they still have five official colors. But the name is fine if generic.

6. Birmingham Stallions. They've also cleaned up the word art and logo, but have kept the colors more or less the same. Nothing wrong here per se, but I like the other five teams better (as well as this other Stallions franchise).

5. Michigan Panthers. Another case of making the logo and word art sharper, and the light blue accent seems more prominent than the original. I was going to rail about both changes, but in looking at old photos I think the changes are less significant than I originally assumed. 

4. New Orleans Breakers. New word art, but the logo looks very close to the original. I'm probably being a total homer for ranking them this high, but they will always be the Boston Breakers to me.

3. Pittsburgh Maulers. I was never a fan of their color scheme. But I like the name and the logo, and the changes they made to the word art and logo are an improvement. 

2. Tampa Bay Bandits. They've also neatened up their word art and logo, and it's also an improvement (though their originals weren't too bad). Very solid and traditional color scheme that works well with a great nickname.

1. Houston Gamblers. They refreshed the word art (an improvement) and it doesn't look like they changed much else. Which is good, as most everything else about their nickname, logo, and colors is great. I still find five official colors too much, but when everything else works that's a minor quibble.

 Apropos of nothing, how I would rename the teams in the National Football League if they had to use names from teams in other football leagues that played in their area.

AFC EAST

Buffalo Destroyers (Arena Football League)
Miami Tropics (Spring Football League)
New England Breakers (United States Football League)
New York-New Jersey Hitmen (Xtreme Football League 1)

AFC NORTH

Baltimore Stallions (Canadian Football League)
Cincinnati Glory (World League of American Football)
Cleveland Thunderbolts (AFL)
Pittsburgh Maulers (USFL)

AFC SOUTH

Houston Gamblers (USFL)
Indianapolis Speed (Women's Football Alliance)
Jacksonville Sharks (World Football League)
Tennessee ThunderCats (National Indoor Football League)

AFC WEST

Denver Gold (USFL)
Kansas City Phantoms (Champions Indoor Football)
Las Vegas Posse (CFL)
Los Angeles Avengers (AFL)

NFC EAST

Dallas Renegades (Xtreme Football League 2)
New York Generals (USFL)
Philadelphia Soul (AFL)
Washington Federals (USFL)

NFC NORTH

Chicago Enforcers (XFL)
Detroit Fury (AFL)
Green Bay Blizzard (Indoor Football League)
Minnesota Fighting Pike (AFL)

NFC SOUTH

Atlanta Legends (Alliance of American Football)
Carolina Skyhawks (WLAF)
New Orleans Voodoo (AFL)
Tampa Bay Storm (AFL)

NFC WEST

Arizona Outlaws (USFL)
Los Angeles Dons (All American Football Conference)
San Francisco Demons (XFL 1)
Seattle Dragons (XFL 2)

Book Log 2017 #1: League of Denial by Mark Fainaru-Wada

Part of me thinks I really should finish the 2016 entries before moving on to 2017, but then there's the other part that says if I don't start 2017 now I probably won't get them done before the end of 2018.

Anyway, seems fitting that I started off the NFL playoffs by reading this comprehensive - and frustrating - account of how the NFL tried to keep the concussion crisis at bay.  It's an interesting combination of PR and (willful?) ignorance on many parts, which will often have you wishing that the league would be razed to the ground... but not if it means the games would stop. I share complicity with fans everywhere who would love to see the NFL get hammered for their role in downplaying this problem, but can't stop watching (even though may are watching less, myself included).

A less noted but also interesting subplot of the book involves the researchers, and how they battle each other to get access - to players, families, funding, former players' brains - and primacy in the research world around concussions and CTE. Working in academia this didn't surprise me, but seeing it play out on the page was a good reminder that the researchers aren't dispassionate observers in this whole thing.

This is very much worth reading, especially for football fans.

With the looming NFL work stoppage, there's been a prevailing attitude that there will be no football next fall. As I was reminded on Facebook (h/t Yostal), as long as Roger Goodell doesn't control the NCAA there will be some football, just not at the (officially) professional level.

Which got me to thinking - what if the NFL replaced each of its teams with the "best" college team that shares its nickname? Here's how I think it'd go:

AFC EAST

University of Colorado Buffaloes for the Buffalo Bills - there are no teams in the NCAA with Bills as a nickname, but as they have a buffalo on their helmet I opted to go with Colorado. Which, really, is trading on sub-.500 team for another.

Jacksonville University for the Miami Dolphins - JU, a FCS team, was nationally-ranked at the end of the season but did not make the playoffs. Which is better than the NFL team, which was out of playoff contention well before the season ended.

University of the Cumberlands for the New England Patriots - OK, I'm kind of breaking the rules here, as the U of C Patriots play in the NAIA. But most of the schools that use Patriots as a nickname don't play football, which seems un-American. George Mason plays club football, otherwise they'd be a shoo-in.

SUNY-Cortland for the New York Jets - only one school uses Jets as a nickname - Newman University - but they don't play football. We could then use its original nickname, Titans, but Tennessee gets to claim that (for what it's worth). The original owners wanted to buy the Chicago Cardinals, but obviously Arizona gets first crack. And as I'm getting sick of this, I went with SUNY-Cortland, which is where the Jets have summer camp. It's actually kind of fitting, as they are also a team with New York in their name that plays in New Jersey (well, in New Jersey Athletic Conference, which is good enough).

AFC NORTH

Benedictine College for the Baltimore Ravens - again, not a common nickname, and the best I could do is this NAIA school from Kansas. There is a NCAA school I could use - Anderson University - but Benedictine seems to have a better team based on their history of conference titles and playoff appearances.

Idaho State University for the Cincinnati Bengals - I was sorely tempted to use the University of Maine at Fort Kent here, but they don't have football (their men's sports: basketball, soccer and nordic skiing). They still may be better than Idaho State, who went 1-10 last season and haven't had a winning season since 2003.

Brown University for the Cleveland Browns - The closest thing to a school using Browns as a nickname is Lehigh University having an alternate nickname of the Brown and White. It's still used to refer to historic teams, but it's not really in current use, so I'm going with the next best option. Which, based on on-field performance, is probably the next worst option when compare to Lehigh. Cleveland gets screwed again.

East Carolina University for the Pittsburgh Steelers - Shockingly, there are no colleges using the Steelers nickname, so as the NFL team originally played as the Pirates, we'll go back to that. And really, that's not such a bad deal compared to the rest of the division.

AFC SOUTH

Tarleton State University for the Houston Texans - one school uses the Texans nickname, and while the school is much closer to Dallas than Houston I'm sure they'll make do. They had a down year this year, but until the NFL's Texans the TSU version has made the playoffs. They even won a game, too.

University of Dayton for the Indianapolis Colts - OK, the Colts pose a problem. There are no schools using Colts as a nickname (which surprised me), and moving to their previous nickname we get... Texans. And it doesn't as we go deeper. The best I can do is Tigers, which a long-ago precursor to the Colts used for one season before merging with the Boston Yanks. So my solution is that as the team can trace itself back to the Dayton Triangles, let's go with the school that's there (as, shockingly, there are no schools using Triangles as a nickname).

Southern University for the Jacksonville Jaguars - I really wanted to go with IUPUI here, but they don't offer football. And if nothing else, they've got a kick ass band.

Illinois Wesleyan University for the Tennessee Titans - there are a handful of schools using Titans as a nickname, but many don't play football. This is the best of the bunch, and all things considered they may even be competitive in this division.

AFC WEST

Boise State for the Denver Broncos - This may be the most perfect fit of all, between the nickname, uniform colors, and familiarity with playing at altitude (Boise being the Half Mile High City). I should be happy about the serendipity, but as I loathe the Denver Broncos I'm not.

Haskell Indian Nations University for the Kansas City Chiefs - no colleges use Chiefs as a nickname (which should prepare you for some sort of wackiness when we get to the Washington Redskins), and I tried to use Ursuline College in Ohio as they're the Arrows (playing off of Arrowhead Stadium). They don't play football. So I figured if you have a team that trades on Native American culture, why not have them represented by actual Native Americans?

Colgate University for the Oakland Raiders - Fitting, as I think Al Davis and William Colgate were frat brothers.

University of New Haven for the San Diego Chargers - The best of a middling bunch, though New Haven was a D2 power briefly in the 1990s when coached by current Dolphins head man Tony Sparano.

NFC EAST

Oklahoma State for the Dallas Cowboys - Once again, a team I despise gets a good NCAA replacement. I'll just have to enjoy the discomfort folks in the Metroplex will experience by being represented by a team from Oklahoma.

Millikin University for the New York Giants - Only one school uses Giants as a nickname - Keystone College - and they don't play football. Thankfully, Milliken uses Big Blue for a nickname, and as that's a common unofficial nickname for the Giants I'm going with it. It also turns out that they play in the same conference as Illinois Wesleyan, which is something I suppose.

Boston College for the Philadelphia Eagles - You can imagine how much I didn't want to make this substitution, but my only other real option was Eastern Michigan, and they've just not played in enough third-tier bowls to justify selection.

Carthage College for the Washington Redskins - Holy crap, there's still a school using Red Men as a nickname? OK, it seems that they've gone from Redmen (using a feather in their athletic logo) to Red Men, a reference to the all-red uniforms of early Carthage teams (they also replaced that pesky feather with a torch). I have a hard time believing the NCAA bought this, but I guess it's just stupid enough to work.

NFC NORTH

Baylor University for the Chicago Bears - They did make a bowl game this year, which I suppose gives them a leg up on Central Arkansas and Coast Guard. Even if in most seasons, games between Baylor and those two schools would likely have been competitive.

University of North Alabama for the Detroit Lions - I badly wanted to go with Columbia here. Both teams are the Lions, both have blue as a main color, and both are very, very familiar with gridiron futility. But I did say I'd go with the "best" team, and I have no doubt that if North Alabama played Columbia, the final score would be 57-0, and not in the Ivy's favor.

Tulane University for the Green Bay Packers - Green Bay presents the opposite problem from the Colts. There are no colleges using Packers as a nickname, and there's no wiggle room to use an historic nickname. The Packers have always been the Packers, no mergers, no moves, nothing. So rather than play around with coaches or whatever, I went with the best team whose nickname started with 'green.' Of course, the perfect substitution for the Packers are the Edmonton Eskimos.

Augustana College for the Minnesota Vikings - I was all set to hand this over to Western Washington, but they've apparently dropped football. I assume Jon Kitna is to blame. I was surprised that this Augustana - located in South Dakota - wasn't the one I was thinking of. That Augustana, in Illinois, won four D3 titles in a row in the 1980s. Still, this Augustana is better than my next option, Portland State, who have won 11 games over the last four seasons. Neil Lomax hangs his head in shame.

NFC SOUTH

Air Force for the Atlanta Falcons - This may be the only time in NFL history where a team can run the triple option and get away with it.

Pittsburgh for the Carolina Panthers - I think if you made this offer to Panthers fans they'd take it, even if there were no lockout.

St. Lawrence University for the New Orleans Saints - Not surprisingly, most of the schools with the Saints nickname are Catholic and not particularly large. It's fair to say that those schools that offer football don't exactly command a lot of media attention. So I went with the school I knew the best, even if it is for hockey. Gary Bettman would approve.

Beloit College for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - I had already typed East Tennessee State in here, but then checked and saw that they don't play football. As an aside, their website touts that the world's oldest person is an alum, as if they had something to do with it. Anyway, I was then going to go with Charleston Southern, except they appear to stink. So it's Beloit, who may be D3 but can at least break even.

NFC WEST

Louisville for the Arizona Cardinals - Like Detroit, there is a team that better fits Arizona's history, and that's Ball State. Both teams enjoyed one recent season of surprising success before returning to their traditional sucking.

Colorado State for the St. Louis Rams - CSU has had some lean years of late, but I'm fairly sure they're still better than Fordham or URI. Perhaps we could schedule a round-robin just to make sure.

Gustavus Adolphus for the San Francisco 49ers - Two schools use the 49ers nickname - Long Beach State and UNC-Charlotte - and neither play football. So I tried to work off the Gold Rush angle, and the one school that actually uses Gold Rush as a nickname - Xavier University in New Orleans - also doesn't play football. So I figured I'd go with the school that had the oddest gold-inspired nickname, and thus wound up with the Golden Gusties of GAU.

Wagner College for the Seattle Seahawks - Because UNC-Wilmington doesn't offer football and Salve Regina's team is somewhat less successful than Wagner's.

Man, I should have broken this up by conference. I was going to try to predict playoffs, but I'm just going to leave well enough alone.

As much of a football fan as I am, even I can't get myself interested to watch the Pro Bowl. After all of the usual talk about the lack of relevance for the game, I think it's time we try to focus on...

MAKING IT BETTER: The Pro Bowl

1. Import some CFL rules. If we're not going to have defense in the Pro Bowl, why not give the offense a chance to put up Arena-style scores? Unlimited motion would open up new possibilities for creative play calling, three downs to make a first would put more pressure on the offense to make yardage, and putting the defensive line a yard off the ball would help to open up the running game. Some would call it a travesty, but I would be happy if the Pro Bowl final score rivaled the NBA All Star Game final score.

2. Replace the game with skills competitions. About the only thing propping up all star games are skills competitions. Of the "Big 4" North American sports leagues, only the NFL doesn't have a skills competition. So let's add one, and instead of having it prop up an actual game, make the competition the actual focus of the weekend, allowing players to showcase what they do best.

Revive the Quarterback Challenge that used to be held in the off season. Have running backs and wideouts run an obstacle-type course to score a touchdown. Rig up a dummy for a hardest tackle contest. Have an open Punt, Pass and Kick competition. There are a number of options, and they'd all be more fun than watching guys go through the motions like they do in the actual game.

3. Combine it with other, non-football sports. I actually had this idea when reading Joe Posnanski's blog post about the game. He led off by talking about ABC's Wide World of Sports, and it got me to thinking that I'd watch the game if, say, Chris Johnson and Adrian Peterson had a best of five log rolling competition between the first and second periods. Or if you had a 10 lap ice motorcycle race at halftime involving all of the offensive linemen. Not sure where we'd get all that ice in Honolulu, but maybe rapid melting would only add to the fun.

4. Drop the conference split and embrace fantasy. It's rare to say that the NHL has trumped other leagues in something other than commissioner idiocy, but they nailed it when they allowed Nicklas Lidstrom and Eric Staal, the team captains, to have a fantasy draft to select teams.

This has obvious applications to the NFL, where fantasy interest is huge. Rather than use players, the two coaches could get together and draft their teams. They could even bring in fantasy experts as draft coaches. Make it even more fun by holding an auction draft so you have the subplots about players who feel snubbed because they were bought for $2. Then allow the coaches to trade players - even during the game.

5. Move the game to the third week in February. After two weeks of nothing but the drone of NBA, NHL and college hoops regular seasons, a football game, any football game, would be a welcome diversion. Moving it this late gives Super Bowl players a chance to play, allows injured players some more time to heal, and generally adds to whatever potential hype the league can muster for this thing.

Barring a last-minute change, it appears that the coming Super Bowl will be the first one ever to not have cheerleaders, as neither Green Bay nor Pittsburgh have squads.

Really, what's the point of cheerleaders on the NFL level? The crowds are too big to have cheerleaders effectively lead cheers; odds are that most of the stadium can't even see them, much less respond to what they're doing. Really, they're there to look purty and give the TV cameras something else to shoot. Based on usefulness to the game as a whole, cheerleaders are the appendix of NFL football.

I know, the women on the squads are nice people and do stuff in the community and cheerleading is a traditional part of football and blah blah blah. But for me, they will not be missed.

I find it hard to belive that the Arena Football League is going out of business, but it looks like that's the case. The league finally seemed to turn the corner in the last couple of years, what with the NBC deal and relative stability in franchise locations.

While I can't say that I know anything about the underlying financial causes of the collapse (other than blaming "the economy"), I tend to think the league was a victim of its own success (so to speak). I know I found myself less interested as the league became more mainstream, and once the Elway Rule brought in free substitution, the league lost the ironman image that was such a key part of its identity. What you had, then, was NFL Lite, and who wants to watch that?

Perhaps the more amusing aspect of this is that af2, the AFL's minor league, never shut down and appears to be going one place its parent league isn't - 2010. While I assume this has somethign to do with the relatively lower cost of running the league, it should also be noted that there's no Elway Rule in af2. Coincidence?

About yesterday...

Game - that was the oddest Super Bowl in some time. Consider that it included:

• the longest play in Super Bowl a history, a 100 yard interception return for TD to end the first half
• a safety, the first since Super Bowl 25
• the first Aussie to play in a Super Bowl (punter Ben Graham)
• a missed opportunity to invoke the Tuck Rule at the end
• the NFC winning its 12th Super Bowl coin toss in a row
  
• the Arizona Cardinals

All in all, a better than expected game that made up in suspense what it sometimes lacked in execution. And while I'd have preferred a Cardinals win, I have no quibble with the Steelers.

Ads - unlike the game, these were less entertaining than expected. The best ad according to USA Today's Ad Meter was the Doritos ad where a guy uses a crystal ball to get free Doritos. It was apparently made by two guys with no advertising experience. Someone's getting fired today.

Meanwhile, the brain trust at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management tabbed the Monster.com ad as the best of the bunch. Considering I had to check what this ad was about when I first read about this (and then had to check again before writing here - it's apparently the ad that had a guy sitting under the rear end of a deer), this may not be the best choice.

And to muddy things ever further, the GoDaddy "enhancement" ad was apparently the most-watched ad of the night. I assume it has to do with the promise of seeing boobies if you go online to watch the rest of the ad.

All that being said, three ads that I liked better than the AdMeter folks were the Pepsi "MacGruber" spot, the Hulu ad with Alec Baldwin, and the Audi ad (mostly for the way Jason Statham doesn't even try to use a Lexus to make a getaway).

Puppies! - and yes, I did watch some of the Puppy Bowl, both before the game as a time killer and during halftime (which managed to sync up with PB's all-kitty halftime). I'd have been more interested had there been a daschund involved, but I did like the touch of using a Chinese Crested as a streaker.

Game - well, clearly that didn't work out the way I'd hoped. That being said, I'm more disappointed about the lack of perfection than actually losing the game. Just another oddity in this most peculiar of NFL seasons for the Pats.

I'm also not thrilled with Eli Manning getting the MVP award. I understand why he got it, but I'd have much rather seen it go to the Giants' D-line, or at least a representative thereof (Justin Tuck, with his 5 solo tackles and 2 sacks, seems like the right choice). They made the difference in the game, as without their relentless pressure Brady would have had more (or any, really) time to do what he does best.

Ads - also an oddity this year is that I'm not stupefied by the selection of the top ad by the AdWatch people at USA Today. Some minor quibbles, but nothing egregious. No classics, though.

Book - you've likely heard (or will hear) that there is (soon to be was) a book available for pre-order on Amazon.com about the Pats' perfect season. While this will be seen as evidence of hubris, I would like to remind one and all that the Boston Globe, who was to put this book out, is owned by the New York Times Company. Conspiracy!

Book Log 2007 #34: Just Kick It by Mark St. Amant

I'd read this a while ago, and am not sure how it didn't come up in turn, but I suppose it's a more fitting mention this time of year. St. Amant, a writer with less than pleasant memories of his scholastic soccer career, finds himself drawn back into competitive sports when he becomes the kicker for the Boston Panthers, a semi-pro team made up primarily of players from Roxbury and surrounding neighborhoods. This not only makes St. Amant a fish out of water physically - being smallish and more years removed from sports than his teammates - but in social and emotional ways as well, as being white and college-educated puts him in the minority for once.

There's a danger that this sort of story could veer into sociological territory that tries to draw conclusions from too small a sample size, but that doesn't happen here. The story that is told is funny, inspiring, at times sad and frustrating, but it's always told well. It also helps to demonstrate how sports can, with its focus on teamwork, help people come together when normally they wouldn't.

Very highly recommended, one of the best books I've read this year.

Good: Next year will see some form of competition in car insurance rates in Massachusetts. Right now we're the only state in the Union where regulators fix rates, and our last stab at de-regulation in the 1970s didn't go so well (I have very vague memories of this, more from the news than anything with my family).

So, finally, I may be able to get car insurance from a caveman, Cockney lizard or a pink-haired secret agent/robot football player/baseball fan. Given how we're getting jerked around by our current carrier, I'll happily put my fate in the hands (paws?) of one of these folks.

Bad: More doping allegations at the Tour de France, most notably Alexander Vinokourov's reported positive test for homologous transfusions, which led his entire team to drop out. On top of that, race leader Michael Rasmussen missed a couple of test dates outside of racing, which he blames on the process required to notify the sport's governing body of changes to his itinerary (to be fair, it's a little mind-boggling that riders can't make changes on-line somehow).

Cycling is dependent on sponsor money, and doping makes it that much harder to get new ones. Tyler Hamilton's suspension killed a good Phonak team that was transitioning to a new sponsor, and with deals soon to run out with T-Mobile and Discovery, more high-level names getting busted won't help keep current sponsors or find new ones. On the positive side, this may make some room for folks like Team Slipstream and others who are trying to clean things up.

Though I'm concerned about a cycling team powered by Mexican food. Don't get behind their riders in the peleton.

Ugly - this whole Michael Vick thing. Ugh.

So in the last three minutes I learned that Randy Moss is now a New England Patriot, having been shipped out of Oakland for a fourth round draft pick. That seems like a bargain, except that we're talking about Randy Moss here. He's still a top-level talent, but as he only tries on about half the plays he's even in the game for, I'm wondering if picking him up is such a good thing.

On the plus side, on the plays where he is sufficiently interested to play, the Pats now have a pretty lethal combination in Moss and Donte' Stallworth. The Pats also have a developing track record for being able to host problematic stars, given the recent Corey Dillon era. Moss is a whole level or two above Dillon in being problematic, though.

I guess I'm just very confused. This is either going to be one of the personnel coups of the Scott Pioli era, or Moss is going to obliterate the good karma surrounding the team and they'll finish 4-12, kicking off a new decade of Patriot futility.