Last night, the matchups for this season’s college football bowl games were announced. The schedule includes 35 games, culminating with the national championship game between Auburn and Oregon. Like every other year, much hue and cry has developed over the number of games and the quality of teams playing.

Over at the popular sports blog Deadspin, Barry Pechesky decried the current system in a piece where he pointed out that his alma mater, Temple, finished just out of the bowl picture. He doesn’t rip the way things are too much. He just seems to think it’s overkill.

I vaguely remember a Bowl Game, capital B capital G, meaning something, though it might just be a legend passed down by my grandfather. These days it takes just six wins to become bowl eligible, and only five against FBS schools. There are 35 bowls, with openings for 70 teams — well over half the number of schools playing football at that level. That makes the NBA look stingy in the number of teams it lets make the playoffs.

The last word jumped out at me and made me realize I had to write about this topic. How can he compare the number of teams in the playoffs, a system which determines a champion, with how many teams get the chance to play in a bowl? The whole reason we have so many bowls is because the NCAA has implicitly made them irrelevant by refusing to consider a playoff.

Think about it. If teams had to fight and claw to get into an eight or 16-team tournament bracket, do you think the ones who failed would want to pack up to play in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl St. Petersburg Bowl as a consolation? Yep, you read that right. The word bowl is in the title twice. The bowls have no relevance if the NCAA allows a true champion, even though I do think the games could serve as a consolation prize outside of a playoff. I don’t think that will happen if there is a playoff, which isn’t coming anytime soon so, until then, who really cares if 70 teams go to bowls?

The current system doesn’t hurt anyone, outside of the deserving schools kept from getting a primo spot in the BCS because of it unfair rules, but that’s another story. Most of the bowls simply exist for the players, the rabid fans and the egos of the organizations which run them. Why take away that fun just because some guy who writes for a newspaper or blog thinks it’s silly to have 7-5 South Florida play 6-6 Clemson in Charlotte at noon on New Year’s Eve?

In the rush to declare what is right and what must be and how the perfect sports world exist, we often forget that sports are fun. So why take away the opportunity for some college players to travel somewhere nice after exams, get some free stuff and have fun playing one more game? Just because it won’t determine the national champion doesn’t mean people can’t enjoy the game for what it is.

Besides, if you seriously have a beef with anyone because Kentucky and East Carolina and Middle Tennessee and Illinois get to play one more game after going 6-6, you might want to consider stepping back from the TV. It’s just a game.