Beef O Brady's Bowl St. Petersburg Preview

Matchup: FIU vs Marshall. The only claim to fame for either team is they beat Louisville. Of course, the fact that Louisville lost to these dregs was used as material to skewer the entire Big East for then allowing Louisville to get so close to the BCS.

Matchup Pedigree: Miniscule. Marshall left its pedigree and tradition behind in the MAC when it left for Conference USA. FIU is a nice story, but 10 years ago it didn't have football and less than five years ago it was winless.

Locale: Miserable. Tropicana Field is a dump of a baseball stadium. It's even worse as a football stadium. This is actually a complement considering the press box flooded during the 1999 Final Four and the place hasn't been improved since then.

Entertainment Value: A bit. T.Y. Hilton of Florida International is the kind of quick, fast, undersized guy that will make NFL special teams coaches cringe. That said, he is the only value (and his performance against Louisville back in September is one of the best of the season).

Corporate Nonsense: LOL. Beef O Brady's. I actually know what Beef O Brady's is, but I'm not telling because the thought that this business is sponsoring a bowl game makes me laugh. In addition, the Beef O Brady's Bowl sounds even worse than the old WeedEater Bowl (I know, Independence...).

Bowl Pedigree: Zero. If we started the process of killing off bowl games, this would be the first to go. And it should be. I can't pile on this game enough or come up with more ways to insult it without resorting to sophomoric insults using colorful language that we avoid on this blog.

Game Prediction: Who cares? T.Y. Hilton scores a TD or 2.

FIU 27, Marshall 21

Should you watch: Never. Avoid this game like the plague. Annually. Watching would be bad for your health. And in the event you have tickets, sell them. Who wants to go to Florida to watch bad football being played in the worst dome ever constructed. Then again, good luck selling them. You'll need it.