Bowl week. Now what do I do?

This is the saddest time of the year for me.  Bowl season is over.  I watch almost no college basketball and baseball season, at least spring training, coming in a month doesn't mean much to me anymore.  What we're, or at least I am left with is getting back to the grind after my annual vacation, which really wasn't long enough.

I confess that I really didn't watch as many of the bowl games this year as in the past.  We had much going on at work when I came back and most of my free time has been spent shoveling the approximately 10 inches of snow that was in my driveway when I got back home.  Hard to believe, but I saw more snow here than I did anywhere in Colorado or Utah at an elevation below 10,000 feet.  Oh well, I knew that sooner or later we were going to pay for the mild winters and summers we've had for the past couple of years.
We got back to town on New Years eve, in time for the Missouri game vs the Naval Academy.  After watching the first half, I confess I missed much of the 2nd.  Missouri looked confused, uninspired and really left us no reason for optimism coming into next year.  If I had one wish it would be for Coach Pinkel to send defensive coordinator Dave Steckel down to Tuscaloosa to spend a few weeks with his old buddy Nick Saban and his staff.  A few days trips for OC Dave Yost might be in order also.  Note: when they are dropping 9 into coverage coach, you might try running the ball a bit.
But keeping things in perspective, it wasn't a bad year when you remember that Missouri was one of the youngest teams in Division 1 football, 2 first year coordinators, and a quarterback that was pretty much playing a good portion of the season on one leg.  Throw in a recruiting class full of playmakers and road graders and I think I'll have no problem renewing my season tickets.
For the bowl season I finished 5-3 on my picks both straight up and vs the spread.  For the year I was 93-33 straight up and managed to go 62-59 against the point spread.  Not bad for me at all.
All spring and summer I expect to see hick nation out in full force on all of the Missouri message boards proclaiming that now, order has been restored, following their 33-0 thumping of Bob Stoops and his Arizona Wildcats and their last second loss to Texas in the Big XII title game.  If you venture onto any sports message boards, then I imagine that you, like I realize the perception of Nebraska fans as "classy" is something that may have been true at one time, but certainly isn't the case now with their new generation of fans.  We've seen one of their long time fans fired from his job and sued with his little stunt of placing a fake newpaper article about an Oklahoma player being arrested for drug dealing.  It's just so much easier being a good fan when your team was consistantly winning wasn't it?  Besides which, there is that pesky little rumor concerning figurehead defensive coordinator Carl Pelini tagging a few of the boosters wives.  Now while I realize most Nebraska women would be just as at home with a yoke around their neck and pulling a plow I still have my doubts about this one.  I mean, I realize that Nebraska women aren't much to look at, but have you seen Carl?  It isn't easy to make Bo look like the attractive brother, but he managed to do it.
We'll also get an opportunity to listen to kansas fans touting their new coach, Turner Gill as he tries to turn around a program that absolutely collapsed the final 7 weeks of the season.  TG has his hands full as his first job will be trying to decide what to do with offensive lineman Darius Parish who was arrested and charged with criminal threat. 
And also, on a sad note, the conference is poorer, in my opinion at the loss of the pirate; Mike Leach from the Texas Tech Red Raiders.  Seems Leach was mistreating the son of former SMU paid running back Craig James and Craig wasn't about to let that happen.  At least the James family can now boast that they've helped run 2 programs into the ground.