Cotton Bowl 2012: Why the Cotton Bowl Should Be a BCS Bowl

It's early January and there is a top 10 college football bowl game being played. 

Any person in their right mind would think this would be a BCS bowl. It is not. For years the Cotton Bowl has pitted two very good teams together in a football fan’s heaven. This year is no different.

No. 7 Arkansas and No. 10 Kansas State square off in college football’s Friday Night Lights. They will play in one of the best football stadiums in the world. There will be at least 80,000 people in attendance.

And yet the Cotton Bowl, a tradition as American as apple pie, is still BCS-less.

The Orange Bowl featured No. 22 West Virginia and No. 15 Clemson in a game that wasn’t even close. The Sugar Bowl boasted No. 13 Michigan and No. 11 Virginia Tech. Yet these two games were BCS approved.  Why not the Cotton Bowl?

The two best conferences in college football are without a doubt the SEC and the Big 12. The Cotton Bowl is the only game this bowl season that pits two teams from those leagues.

And while many bigwig officials find money to be a solid scapegoat in the changing of college football’s world order, the BCS Cotton Bowl would in fact gain money.

"We're really preparing now for 2012 to position ourselves to make a compelling argument that we should be in the mix at the top of the college football landscape,” Cotton Bowl chairman Tommy Bain told the Dallas Morning News.

So far that argument is pretty compelling.

If the point of the BCS is to find the two best teams in college football then the Cotton Bowl is doing one heck of a job! In my mind the Cotton Bowl classic is a must watch, BCS caliber showdown. What do you think? Sound off in the comment section below.