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Little Rock wants a bowl game. It's true. Look, it says so right here on this website and if it's on the Internet, it must be true. Right?
Sources say that this potential bowl game would pit American Athletic Conference and Sun Belt Conference foes at War Memorial Stadium, and sources tend to be even more reliable than the Internet so it has to be true.
The follow-up question, of course, is whether this is a good idea. To some extent, it's a good idea as long as the fine folks of Little Rock can pay and finance this bowl game, but what if there's another question? Namely, is this potential Little Rock bowl game a good thing for Arkansas State? We know that head coach Blake Anderson's squad just about has a subscription to the annual GoDaddy Bowl game in Mobile, but would it be better off having its #FunBelt in Little Rock every year?
I have a highly non-scientific and overcomplicated method to determine this.
First Step: The A-State Players
As currently composed, the Red Wolves have no fewer than five players that hail from Little Rock, including all-world-everything quarterback Fredi Knighten. Along with these five players, another 14 hail from a destination that is within 100 miles of Little Rock. Compare that with only two total players from Alabama whose hometown is in that radius from Ladd-Peebles Stadium, in Mobile.
I'm not saying that humans are lazy creatures or that mothers and fathers wouldn't go to Mobile, AL, to see their son play football. I'm saying that the players' cousins would rather go to Little Rock than Mobile—and someone has to look out for the cousins. Also, more cousins at a bowl game would be good for the Red Wolves. Cousins are the ones who have the vuvuzelas and who make the most noise.
Second Step: The Twitter List
Just as important, I have created a Twitter list to help me with my #expertanalysis and coverage of A-State football. It is neither relevant nor extensive, but the list does have 45 members who (presumably) love the Red Wolves, including 27 who are from 1) Jonesboro, 2) somewhere in Arkansas or 3) Little Rock. It's not entirely unreasonable to expect that they, too, would love a shorter trip for the bowl game.
Technically, all of these fine folks would prefer this Little Rock Bowl game.
That's because...
Third Step: The Geography
The third step is looking at the distance between Jonesboro, where A-State plays, and both Little Rock and Mobile. And, well, doing the exercise is really answering the question. (Or whatever that mantra is.)
Yes, a potential Little Rock bowl game would be to the benefit of the Arkansas State program because it's more fun to travel 136 miles to War Memorial Stadium instead of 460 miles to Ladd-Peebles Stadium for the GoDaddy Bowl.
Now that this is resolved, there is still the matter of the name of this potential game—new bowls in Orlando and Tucson would possibly become, respectively, the AutoNation Cure Bowl and the Arizona Bowl. It doesn't necessarily need to be creative but if it is generic, we, as college football people, can do better than the Little Rock Bowl in Little Rock. Why not call it the A-State Country Bowl Game?