I write this column once a year to implore college football fans to use a standard, common, descriptive set of names for the bowl games. Try saying "Copper" instead of "Buffalo Wild Wings" for the next month, and just imagine the savings!!!

In the pantheon of annoyances, I admit that companies paying somebody to make you use their name out of context is far less destructive than, say, a university trading scholastic loans as private securities and then jacking up tuition so shareholders can make more money.

Still, it is annoying. The purpose of language is the communication of ideas, and elegance in this is a thing everybody should appreciate. Names are communicative tools that allow the listener to reference all information stored on that thing. When speaking to another college football fan, the name of the bowl ought to conjure up its history and location and place in the pantheon. A name sponsor is a jerk who butts into the middle of your conversation…

: Hey, Carol-Sue. Guess what: I just bought tickets to the…

: BUFFALO WILD WINGS™ GRIDIRON SPECTACULER!!!!

: Oh that's nice. I have no idea what or where that is.

: You know, Big Ten teams play in it now but it had WAC teams in the '90s.

: Wait, the one they used to play at Arizona right? Wasn't that the…

: INSIGHT DOT COM FOOTBALLING SYNERGY™

: Yeah, that's it. Remember when Iowa played in the…

: GUARANTEE SHOCKED ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE NOW PERSONALIZED FREE ENSURE CRITICAL ACCOMPLISH WINNING RESULTS PROVEN POWERFUL SIMPLE SOLUTION™

…and makes communication of the idea more difficult. Adding syllables (they couldn't call it the B-Dubs Bowl?) adds to the annoyance. It is cold here during bowl season, so I prefer to not expend what limited body heat I have in vocalizing "The Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile Bowl."*

What to Call Them?

Typically unless it's an older bowl just use the name of the city they play in, and if there are multiple bowls in a city start adding numbers (Tampa II, Cotton II, etc.) If everybody knows a bowl as something because it has been called that for decades, obviously use that.

After [the jump] I'll put up a handy chart of the current bowl slate, complete with sounds you can make to accurately relate meaning to another human, and commercial-free graphics that can do the same. You can keep that open as a tab on your phone or whatever as a reference this month.

They Call It	You Call It	Logo	Started	Payout/Team	Date/Time
AdvoCare V100	Independence		1976	$1,150,000	Dec 31, 12:30p
Alamo	Alamo		1993	$3,175,000	Dec 30, 6:45p
Armed Forces	Fort Worth		2003	$600,000	Dec 30, 11:45a
BBVA Compass	Birmingham		2006	$1,000,025**	Jan 4, 1:00p
BCS Championship	Championship Game		1998	$18,000,000	Jan 6, 8:30p
Beef'O'Brady's	Tampa II		2008	$537,500	Dec 23, 2:00p
Belk	Queen City		2002	$1,700,000	Dec 28, 3:20p
Buffalo Wild Wings	Copper		1989	$3,350,000	Dec 28, 10:15p
Capital One	Citrus		1946	$4,550,000	Jan 1, 1:00p
Chick-Fil-A	Peach		1968	$3,967,500†	Dec 31, 8:00p
Cotton	Cotton		1936	$3,625,000	Jan 3, 7:30p
Famous Idaho Potato	Humanitarian or Potato		1997	$325,000	Dec 21, 5:30p
Fiesta	Fiesta		1971	$17,000,000	Jan 1, 8:30p
Fight Hunger	San Francisco		2002	$837,500	Dec 27, 9:30p
Gator	Gator		1945	$3,500,000	Jan 1, 12:00p
GoDaddy.com	Mobile Alabama		1999	$750,000	Jan 5, 9:00p
Hawaii	Hawaii or Aloha		2002	$650,000	Dec 24, 8:00p
Heart of Dallas	Heart of Dallas		2010	$1,100,000	Jan 1, 12:00p
Holiday	Holiday		1978	$2,075,000	Dec 30, 10:15p
Las Vegas	Las Vegas		1992	$1,100,000	Dec 21, 3:30p
Liberty	Liberty		1959	$1,437,500	Dec 31, 4:00p
Little Caesars	Motor City		1997	$750,000	Dec 26, 6:00p
Military	D.C.		2008	$1,000,000	Dec 27, 2:30p
Music City	Music City		1998	$1,837,500	Dec 30, 3:15p
New Mexico	New Mexico		2006	$456,250	Dec 21, 2:00p
Orange	Orange		1934	$17,000,000	Jan 3, 8:00p
Outback	Outback or Hall of Fame		1986	$3,500,000	Jan 1, 1:00p
Pinstripe	Pinstripe		2010	$1,800,000	Dec 28, 12:00p
Poinsettia	Poinsettia		2005	$500,000	Dec 26, 9:30p
R+L Carriers	New Orleans		2001	$500,000	Dec 21, 9:00p
Rose	Rose		1901	$17,000,000	Jan 1, 5:00p
Russell Athletic	Tangerine		1990	$2,275,000	Dec 28, 6:45p
Sugar	Sugar		1934	$17,000,000	Jan 2, 8:30p
Sun	Sun		1934	$2,000,000	Dec 31, 2:00p
Texas	Texas or Bluebonnet		2006	$1,700,000	Dec 27, 6:00p

Click each logo to get the full size. Use however you like.

* [Still more descriptive than "GoDaddy.com Bowl"]

** and † [A couple bowls have higher payouts for one team; I used the highest amount.]

Degrees of Annoyance

The devouring of the Peach

Michigan happens to have drawn one of the worst this year. One man's categories:

Great (just keep the name sponsors off): Rose, Cotton, Gator, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Holiday, Liberty, Las Vegas, Poinsettia, Alamo, Hawaii, Heart of Dallas, Music City, Pinstripe, Sun. Either you recognize them from grand old games or they describe the city they're in.

Fine: Outback. Let's appreciate that they a.) have maintained sponsorship, and b.) don't use the full name of the restaurant, allowing the bowl to conjure imagery instead of over-salted food. Just remember the Hall of Fame.

Go Back to the Old Name That We All Knew: Peach, Independence, Citrus, Bluebonnet, Copper, Humanitarian, Tangerine (yes that was the name of a lot of bowls but remembering it's the Citrus's little brother is easy).

Just Get Rid of It: The ones named for cities are just waiting for naming sponsors. We need to offload half the bowls anyway and these make for easy targets: Armed Forces in Fort Worth not to be confused with the military themed one in Washington, D.C., the one in Birmingham, the second one in Tampa, the one formerly known as Queen City, the San Fran one, the one in Mobile that's never had a good name, the one in Detroit, New Mexico, that other military one in D.C., New Mexico, New Orleans.