Poll Vault: Are there too many college bowl games?

Why are there 35 Division I college bowl games? Probably because no one could wrangle a sponsor for No. 36.

Get a load of some of these “classics”: the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, the Belk Bowl. (Belk, for those of you who don’t know, is a department store chain in the South. I had to Google it.)

Certainly, there aren’t 70 college football teams worthy of a game this time of year.

I’m a University of Illinois alumna, but even I can’t stomach the Illini playing UCLA in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Saturday. A team that lost its last six games in a row, limping to a .500 record and leading to the coach’s ouster, does not deserve a bowl bid. I’m not drinking the orange and blue Kool-Aid on this one.

UCLA is 6-7, and its coach was fired, too. SBNation.com has declared this the worst bowl game ever.

Is your alma mater playing in a bowl game, and does it deserve to? Would you advocate scaling back the bowl slate or going to a playoff to crown a true national champion? Or is the system fine the way it is?