PALMER: Bowl season has lost it’s soul

By Hunt Palmer

I don’t care about Saturday’s result.

I’ve been locked into every LSU football, basketball and baseball game for more than two decades. I watch the baseball team practice every October and have used LSU-centric passwords in the past. My professional life revolves around the Tigers.

And I just can’t care about bowl results anymore.

This happened four years ago. When Jontre Kirklin was pressed into quarterback duties against Kansas State, I rolled my eyes. When LSU jumped to a 49-0 lead over a coach-less, star-less Purdue a year later, I gave up.

If the players and coaches are concerned with the NFL Draft, the next job or the next NIL check, I can’t trick myself into caring.

I remember the bowl games of my childhood. LSU visiting Shreveport in 1995 and 1997 was a huge deal. Then there was the Sugar Bowl against Illinois that felt like the biggest game I’d ever watched. I was a student for the Brady Quinn-Jamarcus Russell Sugar Bowl in 2007. There was no title on the line, but it sure felt like it.

I went to every Independence Bowl from 1995 to 2008 and always looked forward to that game.

Silly or not, it always felt like conferences were battling for superiority. New Years Day was littered with games between nine-win teams in sunny locals. It’s December 26, and I have no idea who plays in Tampa, Jacksonville or Orlando this time around.

Not a clue.

There is no “right and wrong” here. If you’re of the mindset that LSU is buckling chinstraps, and so are you. Great. If you’ve checked out and have no interest in any of the pregame write ups I’ve penned, that’s fine, too.

For me, Saturday’s matchup with Houston feels more like a televised spring game than an inter-conference bout.

Five defensive starters won’t play. The sitting head coach is off to Oxford when the team plane lands back in Baton Rouge. Who knows how many players will return or enter the portal?

Many fans are more locked into the portal prospects than actual outcomes on the field. The entire bowl schedule feels more like an obligation than a reward.

I’ll cherish many memories of bowl games gone by, but I don’t plan on making any more.

The new rules and regulations of collegiate athletics haven’t lessened my intensity or interest at all when it comes to the regular season or other sports. The two weeks I spent in Omaha this year weren’t dampened because the players have larger checking account balances or Anthony Eyanson didn’t start his career at LSU. I rapidly got to know LSU’s men’s basketball team full of mercenaries this fall. I’m excited about there prospects to make the NCAA Tournament.

I’m on board with most of the new circumstances in college sports. Not these bowls games.