Ready to get bowled over?

I'm fired up about the college bowl season.

Want some proof?

I just went to the EagleBank Bowl's Web site, which asked me to wait while it loaded the bowl's history.

Because I'm so excited about college bowl season, I screamed at my laptop knowingly: "Why am I waiting for the bowl's history to load? This is the first EagleBank Bowl!"

Then I shed a tear when the Web site told me Navy's pep rally Friday had been canceled, presumably due to poor weather rather than indifference.

Thanks to such recent inventions as the EagleBank Bowl, which kicks off the postseason at 10 a.m. today on ESPN (Navy faces Wake Forest at RFK Stadium in our nation's capitol), there will be an NCAA-record 34 bowls spread out over 20 days.

I'm not trying to intimate that 34 bowls are too many, but Northern Illinois received an at-large bid to the Independence Bowl even though it finished with a 6-6 mark.

And the Huskies didn't beat any teams with a winning record.

And they might have set an NCAA record by playing five consecutive games against schools (Eastern Michigan, Tennessee, Miami of Ohio, Toledo and Bowling Green) that fired their coaches.

And the NIU players themselves figured they had no chance at a bowl.

"I was very caught off guard," junior safety David Bryant said.

But here at Bowl Central, we don't want you caught off guard by anything that happens over the next three weeks.

We want you to feel comfortable whether you're watching Louisiana Tech linebacker Dusty Rust, Florida safety Will Hill, South Carolina quarterback Chris Smelley or Hawaii running back Bryce Kalau'oka'a'ea.

Feel free to lean back and learn.

Which conference has the most on the line?

The Big Ten. For the fourth year in a row, Jim Delany's league boasts two BCS teams.

Not only has the league gone 2-4 in BCS games over the previous three years, it owns an 8-14 mark in all bowls during that span.

While this might be cherry-picking the dates to paint a gray picture, the rest of the college football world has tired of the Big Ten's flat postseason act.

Another bad bowl showing will hurt next year's Big Ten champ, whomever it might be, with the pollsters as it pursues a spot in the next BCS title game.

Which coach has the most on the line?

Consider this a tie between Cincinnati's Brian Kelly and Notre Dame's Charlie Weis.

If the Irish can't beat Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl on Dec. 24 - and few teams get off the island with a victory - then Notre Dame will have back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1985-86.

Meanwhile, Kelly, who coincidentally led Cincinnati to a win at Hawaii a few weeks ago, has become the next hot Midwestern coach.

If the Bearcats beat Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, there's not much left for Kelly to do but jump to some place like, um, Notre Dame.

Pick some winners, will ya?

In the also-ran BCS bowls: USC over Penn State; Cincinnati over Virginia Tech; Alabama over Utah; Texas over Ohio State.

And I'm not sure why everyone loves Florida over Oklahoma. Is it because we all missed so badly two years ago when the Gators stunned undefeated Ohio State for the title?

Give me Oklahoma as our national champion.

lwillhite@dailyherald.com