In case anyone is wants to cheer for a particular destination for travel purposes:
1. Rose Bowl - Saturday, 1/1/22 at 5 PM (Pasadena, CA)
2. Vrbo Citrus Bowl - Saturday, 1/1/22 at 1 PM (Orlando, FL)
3. Outback Bowl - Saturday, 1/1/22 at Noon (Tampa, FL)
4. SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl - Thursday, 12/30/21 at 10:30 PM (Las Vegas, NV)
5. TransPerfect Music City Bowl - Thursday, 12/30/21 at 3 PM (Nashville, TN)
6. New Era Pinstripe Bowl - Wednesday, 12/29/21 at 2:15 PM (New York, NY)
7. Guaranteed Rate Bowl - Tuesday, 12/28/21 at 10:15 PM (Phoenix, AZ)
8. Redbox Bowl vs. Pac-12* (CANCELLED)
9. Quick Lane Bowl - Monday, 12/27/21 at 11 AM (Detroit, MI)
10. Duke’s Mayo Bowl - Thursday, 12/30/21 at 11:30 AM (Charlotte, NC)
My preferences (4 through 10 only):
1. Las Vegas Bowl. Pac-12 opponent. Thursday night leading into New Year's weekend.....in Vegas. Yes please.
2. Guaranteed Rate Bowl. Big 12 opponent. Good destination. Good start time. Only complaint here is the day of the week. Tuesday night on 12/28 kind of isolates it from the weekend before and the weekend after.
3. Duke's Mayo Bowl. Kudos to the marketing department at Duke's Mayo because I had never heard of them (or this bowl game) until now. Maybe it used to be called something else I'd recognize. Either way, 12/30 in Charlotte would make it ideal for travel. Not a fan of the 11:30 start though. I see no need to play that early on any day except New Year's Day.
4. Music City Bowl. My only real issue with this one is my last experience there which has nothing to do with the game itself although an SEC opponent is probably our toughest draw. That aside, it's a good destination and within easy driving distance for most of our fans. If I hadn't just been there a couple years ago this would probably be close to the top.
5. New Era Pinstripe Bowl. I personally hate football games played in baseball stadiums (see my Wrigley Field comments elsewhere). I'm also a Yankees fan which makes me cringe extra to think that they are using Yankee Stadium in this manner. Yankee Stadium should be a sacred ground for baseball only but it seems they are content to use the new Yankee Stadium for any activity that will make them a dollar. In the middle of the week on a non-holiday in the early afternoon. I suppose the only redeeming quality here is that it's in the biggest city in the country so it could be a decent destination for those wanting to travel there. As a side note, we also have a basketball game that day although it's a home game against Nicholls with an unsettled start as of now so if we ended up there I'm sure they'd move it to the evening so they didn't conflict.
6. Quick Lane Bowl. Not even sure why this bowl exists. 11 AM on the Monday after Chirstmas weekend in Detroit. I like nothing about it. Also a MAC opponent so it's a game you can lose and look bad in but if you win there's still no excitement about it. I think I'd just as soon decline an invitation than play in this one. The Big Ten needs to swap this out for just about anything else.
I also noticed there is a Boca Raton Bowl that doesn't have any affiliations listed. I wonder if the Big Ten could look at this to replace the Redbox Bowl game that got cancelled. It's a decent destination and it's played one week before Christmas on a Saturday. Seems like it would be a good destination and a decent date to play on. Again, not a fan of the 11 AM start but I wouldn't mind anything else about it as long as we got a P5 opponent (which it has never had one of, let alone two). I'm guessing the payout might also be less than other bowls based on it being held in a 30k seat stadium on FAU's campus. One other red flag here is that our basketball team is scheduled to play Butler at noon in Indy that day so that basketball game would be played almost simultaneously with this bowl game if we happened to somehow wind up in it.
