NEW ORLEANS – Pascal’s Manale, a celebrated New Orleans restaurant featuring its signature dish of barbecued shrimp, opened in 1913 and has seen celebrities such as Jack Nicklaus, the Archie Manning clan, Drew Brees, and likely Huey Long, enjoy its highly touted fare for well over a hundred years.

Archie, and his beauty queen wife, Olivia, and a coterie of their friends gathered in a room with his photos on the wall—ordering barbecue shrimp, oysters, crawfish etouffee, steak, and an assortment of other favorites. Everything was so filling and fulfilling that the entire group passed on dessert.  

A well-known food critic has said that Pascal’s Manale “has a magnificent sauce which seems to contain all the butter in the world and half the pepper.”

The roll call also included Merrick Egan and his pre-teen son, Walker, from Dallas; Vernon and Patricia Brinson, long-time Nola residents, and Phil and Stepanie Brosseau of Charlotte with a weekend home on Hampton Court in Athens—all damn good Dawgs.

Although he does not have the slightest inclination to be the life of the party, the senior Manning who knows everybody there is to know in sports is a seasoned raconteur.  His stories are classic, and he can hold court with an extended period time without lacing his narrative with expletives.

Merrick Egan and Eli Manning are best friends, dating back to their days at Isidore Newman prep school.  Walker saw his first Georgia football practice and enjoyed the ultimate thrill.   His emotions were higher than the Louisiana Superdome where Georgia and Notre Dame met for the fourth time.

Conversations among those gathered here for the game, there was sentiment that the 12-team playoff format this year has restored the major bowls to prominence.

The schools that made it into the playoffs are happy, fans are happy, TV networks are happy and the bowls are especially happy.   Jeff Hundley, executive director of the Sugar Bowl, took time from his busy schedule to express the great satisfaction with an old friend that the Sugar Bowl had with its matchup of Georgia and Notre Dame.

If you are a traditionalist, you have to be pleased that the bowls fared well the first time the new format came about.  Four was too exclusive, and the 12-team plan was not without controversy in that a couple of teams didn’t make the playoffs and lesser teams did.

There will never be a perfect formula with human voters having a significant influence in determining the teams that will compete for the championship.

If your team made the playoffs, then you are one smiling although only one team will hold the championship trophy.   If you can remember how challenging it was to get to a playoff format, you are likely to recall that the old Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was castigated with the greatest of contempt by many.

Are we any better off now than we were back then?   Vibrant controversy remains.   For sure we are richer, but what has all this money done for the game?   

Whatever takes place, we should make sure the classroom remains prominent in whatever format involving all college competitions.   And I will always support the concept of bowl involvement.  The bowls have done so much for college athletics over the years.

Bowl receipts have improved and enhanced facilities on campus, and in some cases, have helped the non-revenue sports.   To say nothing of what bowls have done for the charities in their communities.   

There have been many other ancillary benefits from the bowl arrangement.  Let’s show gratitude—and never give the bowls the back of our hand.