By Do-Hyoung Park on December 1, 2014

How does Stanford football celebrate a thrilling 31-10 upset of a top-10 UCLA team?

Apparently by sending out impassioned pleas en masse to the Stanford student body asking for our help in getting to the Las Vegas Bowl.

No, seriously. In the last two days, I’ve been forwarded two emails from Stanford football players (and I don’t doubt there are dozens more circulating on our servers) asking for us to go onto the Las Vegas Bowl website and vote for Stanford to “appeal to the Royal Purple Bowl committee of our enthusiasm to go!” (According to one of the emails, at least.)

For one, I really doubt that the Las Vegas Bowl will use this poll as a realistic gauge of which fan base would be most invested in the game experience, especially since the Foster Farms Bowl (at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara) picks two spots ahead of the Las Vegas and has made no secret of the fact that it wants a Bay Area team to represent the Pac-12.

On top of that, I know for a fact that most Stanford students never read any of these mass-distributed emails and thought that this campaign probably wouldn’t have much of an effect on the numbers anyhow.

That is, until I ventured to the Las Vegas Bowl website and saw this:

That’s actually hilarious. Props to the football team — I’m actually certain that it’s easier to get into Stanford than it is to mobilize ambivalent Stanford students (on break, no less!) in such a rousing fashion.

But beyond the initial burst of hilarity, there’s something else that those numbers show me: The football players care about this a lot. Sure, the emails seemed like they were written at least in part in jest, but the sense of urgency and the plea to Stanford fans really is there. This matters to them.

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As I’ve been reminded on Twitter many times, from the program’s perspective (and the bowl’s perspective), the Foster Farms Bowl is, without a doubt, the best (and by far most likely) destination for the team this postseason for a variety of reasons.

Foremost among those reasons is the location right in our backyard in Santa Clara, at a shiny new Levi’s Stadium, no less. It’s no secret that Stanford fans are more travel-averse than most boulders, and Stanford alumni in the area would definitely welcome being able to stay around home during the holiday season instead of making the trek over to Las Vegas.

In addition, the Foster Farms Bowl would match the Cardinal up against a Big Ten program — likely Iowa, according to current projections. That’s a bigtime matchup, whereas Stanford would likely draw Colorado State or Boise State out of the Mountain West in the Las Vegas Bowl — teams with much smaller markets. The opportunity for program exposure, viewership, recruiting help, etc. from the Las Vegas Bowl is laughable compared to those from the Foster Farms.

Finally, Stanford probably would play a bit better at the Foster Farms given that it wouldn’t need to go on the road and thus break routine when preparing in the week leading up to the game. It could use its home facilities, the athletes would be in a familiar environment and it would most definitely be a pseudo-home game in terms of the fan support.

But it’s time to stop thinking of these players as just the members of a football program and start thinking of them as what they really are: college students playing a game.

The Foster Farms Bowl is on Dec. 30. That would mean that the players wouldn’t be able to fully relax during Christmas and might not even be able to go home for the holiday to spend it with family. That would also mean that upon completion of the game, they barely have a week to relax before they’re thrown into winter quarter classes (which start on Jan. 5). And after matching up against the big Midwestern boys from Iowa, that’s going to be an awfully sore New Year’s Day.

Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Bowl is on Dec. 20, which would mean that the players’ seasons would be comfortably over by the time the holidays roll around and everybody would be able to relax and enjoy almost a full winter break at home before returning for winter quarter as rested students. Doesn’t that sound nice? I know that if I were a player that had to juggle both classes and football, that’s what I’d want.

And come on. If you’re a college student, of course you’d rather spend your winter break in Las Vegas than hole it out on an abandoned Stanford campus devoid of students for two weeks before… right, sticking around in Silicon Valley and not even getting a cool road trip out of the bowl. Fun, right?

What it all boils down to is this: There’s no denying that it’s been a rough season, and I’m sure that there’s nobody harder on the players about not meeting the program’s lofty expectations than the players themselves. This kind of year is no way for these seniors to go out and no way for this electric freshman class to be welcomed to the Farm.

So put this season aside, put what’s good for the program aside, and let these kids have some fun. They deserve it. Let them unwind on the Las Vegas Strip and enjoy being in a fun, warm city in the middle of December and let them forget about being football players coming off of a 7-5 season. Let them be college kids having fun with their best friends over break.

Seriously, would it be such a big loss to give them that and miss out on playing Iowa in a bowl game that’s going to maybe give the program marginal boosts in recruiting and attendance but likely get overshadowed by the “New Year’s Six” bowl games starting the next day anyway?

I don’t think so.

Do-Hyoung Park’s love of craps, blackjack and roulette is only matched by his desire to see the Cardinal in the Las Vegas Bowl for — ahem — football reasons (looks around shiftily, tugs collar). Contact him at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu or Tweet him @dohyoungpark to find out more.