We’ll get to the actual Fiesta Bowl matchup in a moment, but I want to talk about Tostitos for a second. Remember that election spoof commercial that they aired during the campaign (and even now) with the two dudes that clearly represent Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, as well as the moderator who looks just like Rachel Maddow? Of course you do, it’s this one right here. Okay, well forget the political commentary, because that’s not what’s bothering me.

Don’t you think that if you were sitting in a large auditorium, listening to two of the world’s most powerful people speak, that someone would freak the f*ck out and overreact when a talking, dancing bag of tortilla chips entered the room? I just find it a little hard to believe that the Secret Service would be so trusting of snack food, that’s all.

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So I guess the Fiesta Bowl is not just a BCS game that’s played once per year, but is actually an actual corporation, complete with ridiculous expenditures and a big CEO firing. That CEO, John Junker, was fired amid cries of the Fiesta Bowl losing its status as a BCS bowl game.

Top executives at the Fiesta Bowl, the host of one of the nation’s pre-eminent college football games, funneled campaign contributions to local politicians, flew other Arizona elected officials around the country at the bowl’s expense, racked up a $1,000 bill at a strip club, and even spent $30,000 on a birthday party for the chief executive, according to an investigative report commissioned by the bowl’s board of directors.

–NY Times.

Wait, so Junker had a birthday party AND went to a strip club in two separate events? Jeez, Jeff. Was it your birthday or something?

The Fiesta Bowl had covered $13,086 in expenses connected with one employee’s wedding in Kansas City. Junker bestowed on others such gifts as iPads, gift cards and, most bizarre, bullion. He purchased (and billed to the bowl) some $22,000 worth of gold and silver coins.

–SI.com.

And then there were campaign contributions made by Fiesta Bowl employees that were later reimbursed by the bowl. That’s a felony, which is pretty awesome. I’m just relieved that we’re finally discussing actual crime, and not Barry Bonds’s balls.

As a football coach, calling for a fake punt in a game is like telling an ethnic joke at a party. If it goes bad, there’s just no way to recover. But if works, it makes you look like a genius. A racist genius, but we’re getting off-topic. So Boise State ran this fake punt in the fourth quarter of the Fiesta Bowl against TCU on their way and it worked like a Japanese beaver right before a flood. Which is to say, very efficiently. I guess I could have just said “very efficiently,” but that doesn’t seem to be as much fun, now does it? And what about those TCU uniforms? That team looked like a cross between a dystopian militia and a gay pride parade. Aw, there I go again. I’ve been spending too much time with Grandpa. Read the rest of this entry »