Noted television analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who didn’t invent college football as far as anyone can tell, has a solution for the future of the bowl season in which 900 seemingly healthy college athletes decided not to participate in.

“I think you eliminate the bowls,” Herbstreit told ESPN. “Nobody wants to play in them; don’t play bowls.”

I don’t have time to run the numbers, but I’m guessing there are more than 900 players in college football, so somebody must have been playing in the 40+plus bowl games that were just played.

Yes, every Florida State player this side of former Seminole Burt Reynolds decided to take a powder before the Orange Bowl and – ding, ding! – we have a new winner in this annual shameful display of opting-out.

And you might be thinking how sad it is for the Orange Bowl, pretty much a stable of college football since 1935, which is 34 years before Kirk Herbstreit was invented.

It might have been sad for the Orange Bowl this year, but that’s water off an Oregon Ducks’ back. Next year, the Orange Bowl will host a national semifinal, so let’s don’t feel too sorry for those boys and girls.

You know who won’t be hosting a national semifinal next season? The Independence Bowl. That’s who Herbstreit and all of the get-rid-of-the-bowls whiners should be thinking about.

With it being duly noted that the Bahamas Bowl wasn’t even played in the Bahamas this year and that dozens of fans showed up for the Las Vegas Bowl, there is always a place in the college football landscape for lesser bowls.

You can define “lesser bowls” however you like, but don’t be surprised to see the Independence Bowl proudly standing in the front of that line.

Years ago, there was a pretty strict limit to the amount of bowl games you could have. Do you know why Notre Dame and LSU came to the I-Bowl in 1997? There weren’t a lot of other options (and LSU was 8-3 and ranked in the Top 20).

That year, the Independence Bowl was one of 20 games. A bowl game had to prove that you belonged if you wanted to keep status and our red-coated friends did it year after year.

Then every city with a large stadium and a tourist bureau decided it wanted a bowl game too, so the NCAA hopped in the sack with ESPN and here we are with 43 of them things.

Bowl games aren’t a blip on the tourism radar for cities everywhere from Boca Raton to Las Vegas. The DFW area and Orlando have three non-playoff bowl games. Really? Couldn’t they shuck at least one or two of those?

And don’t get me started on the bowl games that are played on a baseball field (There’s four of those). The only reason there is a Fenway Bowl is because the Yankees have one (Pinstripe Bowl). Y’all go fight that fight in the summer.

Here’s Herbstreit again discussing next year when the 12-team playoff is implemented: “We’ll have the 12 teams, we’ll get excited about those and if you want to add maybe five or six more bowls outside of that, then do five (or) six. We’re getting to a point that its ridiculous. We’re putting 6-6 teams in bowl games nobody cares about.”

OK, Kirk, now we are getting somewhere. Instead, we are going to keep bowl games that are comfortable in their own ugly-jacketed skin.

Games that mean something to their communities.

Games with some degree of tradition.

Games where the bowl decided who plays in them, not conferences. (I know, wishful thinking).

Games that don’t exist just for the glorification of someone’s massive ego (Rob Gronkowski, Dave Portnoy).

Let the big boys have their stage while the others — Sun, Gator, Liberty, Independence, Alamo, Hawai’i — offer a nice appetizer. Throw in a few more if you’d like, but set a limit. You don’t get in unless somebody gets out.

Or opts out, as the case may be.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com