The Worst Bowl Game In The World (2009 Edition)

Are you busy this afternoon? Probably, because you have a life. However, if you're unemployed or otherwise indigent, get out your scraper because we've reached the very bottom of the college sports barrel. It's time for the EagleBank Bowl!

We should start by apologizing to the PapaJohns.com Bowl. Sure, you take place in Birmingham, Alabama, but at least you also make us think of delicious pizza! There is nothing appetizing about EagleBank, a financial institution so rock solid it doesn't even merit its own Wikipedia page. (Unlike each individual episode of "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer".) However, they do have their very own URL and a website that almost works in Firefox.

The game is taking place on a Tuesday afternoon, the only day this week that people might actually show up to work in their offices. Kickoff is at 4:30 p.m. ET, just missing that lucrative Pacific coast lunch hour, which is too bad, because one of the teams playing in it is UC of Los Angeles.

You've heard of UCLA, right? They are the PAC-10 powerhouse that went 6-6 this year and finished eighth in their 10 team conference. The Bruins athletic department is tingling over this bowl invite since it provides them something every fan and player dreams of: the unique " opportunity to break even" financially. Their opponent, Temple, is only in it for the two-and-a-half hour bus ride to Washington, D.C. Current temperature: 30° F. But don't worry... it just feels like 17°!

The only reason that either of these squads were invited was because the two teams guaranteed a slot in the game before the season—the ACC's ninth best school and Army—couldn't be bothered to round up six victories. (Probably too busy learning stupid things like how to fight wars.) This was a shocking turn of events for a bowl with such a prestigious history of pitting a service academy against North Carolina's fourth or fifth best football school.

Speaking of things that have only happened once, last year's inaugural EagleBank (one word, please!) Bowl drew 28,777 to RFK Stadium, Washington's other less useful football palace. I'm sure UCLA has at least that many backers in the Metro D.C. area. They are all congressional staffers working a bill to declare college bowl season a national treasure that must never be tampered with.

UCLA and Temple have different takes on the EagleBank Bowl [LA Times] A 30-year bowl wait almost over for Temple [AP/Yahoo]