Was a Bowl Game the reward and culmination of your financial support, season tickets, fanaticism and hope in the not to distant past?
Representing your conference , the pride of showing off your best players to the rest of the Nation!
Is this really something only “old people” care about?
Not sure I totally understand the question ... I was a RU fan growing up in Bloomfield and attended RU for grad school (84-86). Any sport RU plays in - I am a fan. Full Stop.
Is the question specifically about bowl games? RU Bowls are great - usually means RU has had a good/great season (2021 was a weird outlier), though I'm generally not a big fan of the bowl concept - would much prefer a playoff system for the best teams and then bowls for rest of the teams with good seasons.
I don't think that NIL changes anything about how players represent their schools. There is always going to be school pride.
NIL and the transfer portal are flawed - they should have some rules and regulations. I don't like the Wild West element that exists now. I've always thought that there is way too much money in college sports and think salaries for coaches are beyond ridiculous. One good thing - the players are getting a piece of the pie. The Big Ten will be generating as much as $1.5 BILLION a year in TV/streaming fees. In my worldview, the players deserve to get paid.
As Rutgers football fans, we've been through the shit more times than I care to recount. We are a full-fledged member of the best conference in college sports. The professionalization of college sports doesn't change my level of rooting interest one bit.