FanHouse MusicCityBowl

Turkey Legs to Go is FanHouse's complete travel guide for all of the 2008-2009 college bowl games. Here, we cover the Music City Bowl (Nashville, Tennessee), which pits Boston College against Vanderbilt.

Overview / Matchup: Boston College just competed in the ACC title game. They lost, obviously. So, while Nashville is a terribly cool city, just remember that this is a reasonably shoddy consolation prize compared to slinging oranges in Miami and hanging an ACC Championship banner in Beantown. And if anyone's made to play New Year's Eve spoiler, it's an underdog/upstart team like the Commodores.

Hotels: There are a number of excellent hotels within two miles of LP Field. Most of those are just across the river in the downtown area. For a truly memorable stay we recommend the Gaylord Opryland Resort. The Gaylord is a little ways (15 minute drive) from the stadium, but the property exists on a scale seldom seen outside Las Vegas. If you'd rather avoid crowds and sensory-overload, or are just there for the football, there are a number of hotels just across the river from the stadium. The Doubletree Hotel is particularly nice and just blocks from the stadium. If budget's your main concern try the Knights Inn. They have rooms for less than US$100 per night.

Restaurants: For dinner, if you feel like spending big try Radius 10. Chef Jason Brumm combines gourmet technique with southern favorites. Try the Kobe beef short ribs with black truffle grits. Try lunch at Noshville New York Delicatessen. This traditional New York deli is immensely popular and serves great sandwiches like corn beef and pastrami. For a budget meal that can't be beat, look no further than Jack's Bar-B-Que. The restaurant is famous for Tennessee pork shoulder and ribs, and Texas beef brisket and sausage.

Every bowl game is important to the teams involved but not all of them are important to the rest of us. Still, they all deserve at least some of our attention, so FanHouse is previewing all the minor bowls in three sentences or less. Part 1, which covered all the games played before Dec. 30, may be found here. In this installment, we look at the rest of this year's less weighty games. If a game isn't covered in Part 1 or Part 2, we'll give it more attention soon.

Your New Year's Eve Eve will start off with the Humanitarian Bowl (Maryland vs. Nevada), and the over/under is 43. That's not for points; that's for the number of Maryland fans who will actually fly across the country to watch a 7-5 team play another 7-5 team in a stadium that takes its color cues from the Brady Bunch's rec room.

Later that same day we get the Texas Bowl (Western Michigan vs. Rice). Both these teams feature wide-open offenses and purely theoretical defenses, so expect a lot of points. Actually, don't expect anything, because it's on the NFL Network and you probably won't be able to see it.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, the holidays have slowed things down around here. Us Clemson folk tend to do the family and friends thing around Christmas time which leaves little time for blogging...

But I digress.

Clemson takes on the Wildcats of Kentucky tomorrow in the "Some stupid advertiser's name goes here" Music City Bowl. Kickoff is at 1PM--eastern standard time. The game is in Nashville, Tennessee making it a Noon kickoff locally.

I'll refrain from the the usually "Keys to Victory" for this one ... that would just be too easy. Ya know, run the ball well, don't turn the ball over, etc.

Instead, I'll give a nice "Go Tigers!" and wish the boys well--especially those seniors playing in their last game as a Clemson student-athlete.

Oh ... and just like every other week, I'll predict a Tiger victory. Clemson 31, Kentucky 24. The Tiger running game will be too much for a Kentucky defense that allows 189 yards per game on the ground.