FanHouse EagleBankBowl

FanHouse gathers around the TV to bring you insights from Bowl Season '08.

Wake Forest headed into the 2008 Eagle Bank Bowl -- the first and obviously most prestigious of all postseason college events -- heavily disappointed with their season. A late loss to N.C. State sealed their fate as a lower tier bowl team, but it was an earlier home loss to Navy that had really derailed their season.

Well, that and the fact that offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke convinced Jim Grobe that running the ball 55 times against Miami would guarantee Wake a win. Fortunately, the EBB gave the Demon Deacons redemption on both counts as Wake downed the Midshipmen 29-19 in the first game of the bowl season.

Oddly enough, the score doesn't indicate two things very well: 1) Riley Skinner was perfect passing, going 11-11 for 166 yards passing and 2) the Deacs had to come back. Navy scored the first 13 points of the game and Wake looked horrible on both sides of the ball and, well, it looked like a repeat of earlier this year.

Skinner and Wake woke up at the end of the second half and with the help of Josh Adams' pair of short yardage touchdowns, came away with a fairly decisive victory.

Ready for bowl season? Join FanHouse as we preview each of the 34 bowls with a lot of analysis, a little irreverence, and, we promise, at least one joke about Karl Malden's nose. Your parents, or Joe Paterno, will explain it to you.

Below are the Week 1 bowl games. Click here for Week 2 and the non-BCS bowls of Week 3. Or click here for BCS bowls analysis.

As the radio and TV keep telling us, it's the most wonderful time of the year. For college football fans, this is most certainly true. We're only 10 days away from the start of the bowl season, and already, the BCS national championship has been analyzed to death. (Hey, did you realize Oklahoma scores a lot of points? Wow, Florida has a good quarterback. I think his name is Tom Turbo or something.)

Some games get substantially less attention than the big time, big money blockbusters, however, and there's a good reason for that. They're only meaningful to the teams involved and their fans. But that doesn't mean that we fans should pay them no attention. It just means we don't need to pay them much attention.

So we at FanHouse have decided to give you a brief summary of these lesser games. I know that calling the Motor City Bowl "lesser" might be controversial, at least to people from Detroit, or people from the planet Gazorpnitz. For the rest of us, we'll keep it short. We start with the games played before Dec. 30, and if you don't see a game previewed here, it'll get more attention from one of us later. Now, onward!

Turkey Legs to Go is FanHouse's complete travel guide for all of the 2008-2009 college bowl games. Here, we cover the Eagle Bank Bowl (Washington), which pits Wake Forest against Navy.

Overview / Matchup: The Navy Midshipmen are locked into what could be one of the more controversial bowl games of the 2008 season. Why, you ask? Well, because the ACC takes up the other slot in this game. Only one problem -- Maryland, who appeared to be the most obvious choice, has said they won't play in D.C. because of an exam conflict. Wake Forest, the next choice, accepted an offer to rematch against Navy, who shocked the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem earlier this year.

Hotels:For luxury accommodation we recommend the Ritz-Carlton, Georgetown because it's in a great location for going out. There are lots of young people, which means a strong focus on college sports (area newspapers have actually run stories about the large number of Carolina graduates that populate Georgetown). But there are probably a dozen world-class hotels in DC, and plenty more luxury options. None of the hotels listed are close to the stadium, because South East DC is too jangly for most tourists. The Capital Hilton is a great midrange option and probably offers the best all-around value for bowl travelers. The National Mall and two different metro stops are within easy walking distance. Recently refurbished and just three blocks from the Capitol, the Best Western Capitol Skyline Hotel is the best bet for the budget-minded traveler.