Talking Points: Texas-sized break for Alamo Bowl

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What a break for the Alamo Bowl when Northern Illinois cracked the BCS as an at-large team and the Texas Longhorns became available for the bowl game in San Antonio.

The matchup of Texas (8-4) and Oregon State (9-3) makes the Alamo Bowl appear the most interesting of the second-tier games.

It pits two schools who don’t have a history with each other.

Think of the relief for Alamo Bowl officials when they got the option of the Longhorns over Baylor, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, TCU or West Virginia.

The Alamo Bowl enjoyed its second-best attendance and second-best television ratings in 2006 when Texas played and beat Iowa.

For Oregon State, it’s a chance to beat a storied opponent in the heart of the some of the best recruiting territory in the nation.

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The flap from basketball dictator David Stern’s fine of $250,000 of the San Anonio Spurs for not playing starters against Miami recently is calming down.

But, we enjoyed this commentary from Marc Valeri of bleacherreport.com, so we pass it on:

“But where to go from here? I’m not even a Spurs fan, and my blood is boiling. It’s not a logical decision by any means, but if I’m (coach Greg) Popovich, there’s no chance in hell I let this slide. Bench your starters again. And again. And again. Keep doing it. For every fine you receive, you bench your team. You stop only when Stern issues an apology for being a doofus.

“The increasingly unpopular Stern has accomplished many positive things for the NBA, but I’d be remiss to say I wasn’t looking forward to him saying his final farewell on February 1, 2014. The NBA is arguably the most globally-popular sport and has more international draw power than any other game, yet is the easily worst run league of the big four North American professional sports.”

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