Even for me, Christmas Eve was admittedly almost the breaking point.

’Twas the night before Christmas, all righty, but what to my wondering eyes should appear but …

Rice and Fresno State, flanked by a lot of hula skirts, sand and surfers in the background.

It was downright scary is what it was.

You should know by now how I feel about college football’s postseason.

The newfangled playoff is a dandy idea, of course, but only in moderation and you need something before the main course.

When it comes to the bowl season, the view from this pulpit has always said let’s deck the halls with bowls of folly ­— come one, come all, the more the merrier.

Santa Clara is coming to town and who cares if the stands are empty? … what channel is it on?

And I can’t get enough of it.

Put 11 Christmas hamsters in somebody’s school colors and we’ll find some compelling reason to watch it. And care. Or, anyway, fake it. You can switch rooting sides two or three times a quarter without fear of bandwagoning.

It’s a grand holiday tradition.

But then, almost without warning, and even with the kids nestled all snug in their beds, what clatter should arise but this … this Hula Bowl thing, must-see because it’s on TV, and … oh, my gosh, the humanity, the carnage, the complete and total Mele Kalikimaka of it all.

What have we wrought?, thought mama in her kerchief and I in my cap.

Is is worth it? Have we gone too far?

Maybe we’d gotten too cocky earlier in the day, when it really seemed like there was no limit, no boundaries to what was possible from the holiday bowldom.

Just look at the Eve’s afternoon fare.

We’d even taken the bold step of outsourcing bowl games overseas, to the Bahamas, with an extra-spicy fried chicken sponsor and — hark the Herald Angels and pass the turkey stuffing — but did you see Western Michigan’s 75-yard, Hail Mary/no-look multi-lateral/landrush touchdown to cap a jillion-point fourth quarter?

To Dancer, now Dasher, then Prancer and Vixen, even Donner and Blitzen got a hand on the fool thing before Comet or Cupid or somebody did the dash away, dash away just to the top of the pylon.

Who cares if, following that miracle, all they could come up with for a 2-point encore was a tired, old-fade route (predictably incomplete)?

That, kiddos, is high entertainment.

Football holidays in the Bahamas, just the way it was meant to be.

Yeah, us bowl apologists were feeling pretty smug.

But just when it looked as if we’d found something useful even for a soccer field to do, they took us live, to Hawaii, to Waikiki, to Rice and Fresno State in yet another fully sanctioned bowl game extravaganza.

And …

Really?

Seriously?

Uh …

If these two teams, Owls and Bulldogs, are bowl eligible, have we pushed the envelope too far?

Where in the world did either one of them round up the requisite six victories for postseason?

Can we check some ID’s at the door, please?

It was Hawaii and it was gorgeous, but it was college football on Mai Tai’s that will surely leave a hangover, if not much of a bruise.

Having paid far closer to attention to LSU this season, I thought I’d seen every possible and conceivable way to incomplete a forward pass.

But these guys, Fresno in particular, were exploring wild and crazy uncharted territory.

Passes were flying here, there, everywhere, maybe Guam … anywhere except the same time zone as eligible receivers.

You really had to turn your head at times, rethink your priorities.

Really, have we taken this extravagance too far?

In other words, it seemed like a perfect time for a long winter’s nap.

But even in my Christmas Eve slumber, no visions of sugar plums, no indeed. I set my visions a little higher, thank you very much, but never mind. More like a lot of tossing and turning. Unfair or not, Fresno State and Rice had me questioning the entire bowl universe.

Could this be the final straw? And did that pass just donk off Diamondhead?

Maybe we did fly too close to the sun with 39 bowl games. Maybe 38 was the magic number.

Really, what is a Boca Raton, anyway, and do we need a bowl there?

Famous Potatoes? Maybe there’s no other kind. But when a farm, or maybe it’s a Foster Farms, has its own bowl — Stanford vs. Maryland — are we looking at more and more of this?

It was an unsettled night, all right.

Questions, questions, questions.

But, as usual, Christmas Day dawned and with renewed vigor and the sound of giggly young ones and it restored the faith once again.

We will survive.

And that’s kind of true.

Actually, there arose yet another clatter and I sprung from the bed to see what was the matter.

Oh yes, I flew like the proverbial flash, tore open the shutter and threw up the sash (which wasn’t easy since I didn’t know what a sash was).

But the problem was obvious, oh yes it was, for it was Christmas Day — and, of course, that means the traditional 12 hours of sports viewing hell when the NBA hijacks all available TV outlets with no choice but to force December pro basketball on a trapped audience.

Makes you long for the old Blue-Gray all-star game.

But it was somewhat heartening, somehow invigorating. The Hula Bowl aside, it was reassuring proof that we need at least one more college bowl game just for Christmas Day.

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com(MGNonline)