Here's a question… Are there too many college football bowl games?

Do you remember the days when there were four college football bowl games? If not, you are too young or your memory has slipped. The Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and the granddaddy of them all the Rose Bowl… That was it.Though they still exist and are part of the College Football Playoff, there is a plethora of other bowl games. In fact there are some three DOZEN bowl games and it does beg the question from my title.I've given the question some (relatively) serious thought and my conclusion may surprise you. Let's take a look.In my opinion the main purpose of bowl games is to reward teams for a successful season with the opportunity to play one more game. With the number of bowl games multiplying, the definition of successful seems to have changed. To qualify for a postseason contest, a university's football team needs to win a minimum of six games. Since schools play 12 games in a season they only need to win half their games to qualify.I don't know about you, but finishing the season with a .500 record is not my definition of successful. The fact is there are so many bowl games and there is not enough six win teams to fill them, that teams that go 5-7 can now get in.So does this mean that I think there are too many bowl games? Actually it does not. I have no problem with all the bowl games. First of all, there are other reasons for hosting the games besides rewarding a successful season. I'll get to those in a minute, but for now how about this logic. Who cares how many there are? You don't have to watch them all!As long as there are sponsors the number of bowl games will not likely decrease. But what about other reasons for having the games. Well, here is a list.A reward to loyal fans. Those people that support a given school get to attend (a vacation in December is always nice) or at least watch their team on TV play one more time.A chance for players, band members and other school personnel to visit some cool destinations. Imagine performing in Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park. Or visiting the Alamo or Riverwalk in San Antonio. It's not just football.Players also get to do some humanitarian work on these events. It never gets old watching players interact with children in hospitals of serving meals to less fortunate people. These activities are part of the experience.Football fans that live near some more remote cities get to take in a game. Some of the host cities that feature bowl games are Frisco, Texas, Shreveport Louisiana, Birmingham, Alabama and Conway, South Carolina. Taking away some of the games because there are "too" many would be unfair to these folks.This may be a stretch, but sports fans like myself get to see some interesting TV fare. Without the Potato Bowl we would not get to see the Smurf Field or the large potato on the semi-trailer bed. We would not get to see the impressive trophies awarded for each game.The Pop Tarts Bowl trophy that includes a working toaster is an example. Post game celebrations that used to see winning coaches get doused with Gatorade now have become a little wilder.In the Duke's Mayo Bowl, the winning coach has mayonnaise dumped on his head. That would not be fun. Steve Sarkisian had Cheez-It snacks poured on him. Penn State's interim coach was hit with grass clippings following the Nittany Lions win over Clemson. That makes sense if you know that Bad Boy Mowers was the Pinstripe Bowl's sponsor.As for football action, I think a five minute stretch in the Pitt and East Carolina game was pretty cool. Leading 10-7, the Pirates scored on a long run only to have the TD disallowed because of an inadvertent whistle. Instead of going up 17-10, Pirate fans had to watch a quarterback sack, fumble and TD return by Pitt a couple of plays later.Now they found themselves trailing 14-10. Don't worry though. After getting the ball back ECU scored on an 80 yard TD pass. Talk about momentum swings. ECU would go on to win the game much to the relief of one embarrassed official I'm sure.So to summarize. Are there too many bowl games? It is an unequivocal no for me. In fact I would suggest that we add one more.Since we have established the fact that a winning record is not a priority to get into a bowl game, how about we find two "winless" teams. We could send them to someexotic location and call the contest The Toilet Bowl. I even have a sponsor… Ty-D-Bol would be perfect, don't you think?I would watch this game. Unless there was an Andy Griffith Show rerun on! Hey, there's Barney, Opie, Aunt Bee...