I hear Scott talking about marketing all the time. To me, a bowl game is THE BEST marketing tool we can have.

The reason I say that is because people associate going to a bowl with being a good football team. You may be 6-6 and not really all that good in reality- but the PERCEPTION is that you have a good team. And most of them are over the Christmas holidays- AND they have an almost exclusive slot on TV. Unlike Thursdays where we would have to compete with several other teams and even the NFL. People like to watch college football over the holidays and if we are one of the teams represented- that is a VERY good thing for us.

And if you go to a bowl year after year after year then people start to subconsciously think things like "oh yeah, I saw MSU when they were in the Gator Bowl last year and here they are again- I think they go to a bowl every year. They're pretty good".

And of course, since most bowls are on even the most basic of cable packages there are a lot of people that have access to view those games.

I know a lot of people may not like or find it interesting when we play Troy or UT-Martin, but it helps us out in the big picture. And hopefully when we go to a bowl we get to play someone interesting like Georgia Tech or Michigan.