You know, I heard that same tired argument from a West Virginia fan at the diner just last week. Let me tell you something, son. The bowl games still mean everything to the programs that built their legacy in them. I was in Tempe for the 2004 Fiesta Bowl when Larry Fitzgerald nearly willed us past Utah, and that memory doesn't fade because some kid from Indiana enters the portal. You think Tony Dorsett's Heisman season was diminished because the Sugar Bowl was just an "exhibition"? That's the talk of someone whose team hasn't earned enough of those trips to understand the honor. We spent the entire 1976 season chasing that Sugar Bowl berth, and when we won it all, it cemented a legend. The tradition isn't gone, it's just been forgotten by fans of schools that treat every 6-6 season like a birthright to complain. The portal and opt-outs are a problem, I'll give you that, but the moment you stop caring about competing for a bowl trophy is the moment you surrender your program's soul. I still get chills thinking about Dan Marino slinging it in the Gator Bowl. If you think that's meaningless, you never undesrtood the game in the first place.