Shutdown Fullcast - 40 FOR 40: The 2025 XBox Bowl

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

WWWWWWWWELCOME to the return of 40 For 40, our bowl preview series where every bowl game gets its own episode and each episode is exactly as long as that game deserves.Who decides what “deserves” means? We do! Thank you for askingNow through December 31, 100% of proceeds from all PTKU merch sales will be donated to Trans Ohio. Visit preownedairboats.com to purchase BRAND-NEW BLUE SHARKS GEAR #EXCLUSIVEThis episode was produced by Michael Ray SurberFullcast theme 40 For 40 intro arranged and performed by Russell PowellFullcast theme 40 For 40 outro arranged and performed by MattDID YOU KNOW: Spencer and Holly write Channel 6, a year-round newsletter that is mostly about football, until it’s notBefore the world ends (again), treat yourself to Jason’s critically praised novel and other workTravel in your mind palace to Phantom Island, Ryan’s new show with Steven Godfrey, which is not a college football show because another simply cannot existCheck out Surber’s band Killer Antz and his new show Podcasterino

Xbox noise Welcome to the Xbox bowl preview The bowl I cannot think about without laughing My favorite bowl of the entire calendar including the one my alma mater is in making its first ever postseason appearance The Xbox bowl the former Bahamas Bull, which has gone to the bowl heaven in the sky, which is Frisco, Texas, following the Miami Beach Bowl.

If ESPN sort of gets bored with it, they will move it to Frisco, Texas, and they will play it at the Dallas Cowboys practice field, which is like, if you're an institution in Texas, you have to have a 10,000 capacity football stadium. That includes if you're the Dallas Cowboys, and you already have a 100,000 seat football stadium. you also need this one because jerry jones will scrap and scratch and claw for every single dollar he can possibly get out of you the venue is funny it is a NFL team's like not even backup stadium like they send some high school football stadium events here which is also why it has to have 10,000 seats because of course they did the water burger's friday night stars in a ven every friday night at the fucking cowboys practice field the venue is funny each games to this place this is so fucking weird The Bahamas background of it is funny.

The Bahamas Bowl was funny because it was the Popeye's Bahamas Bowl when there wasn't a Popeyes there. And then it died, and it was not until November that we learned that it would be replaced by the Xbox Bowl. Like, you would look at ball projections in August, September, October, and whoever was making it would have just have like the TBA Bowl. There was also one, at least one weird year where it was like the Maker's Bahamas Bowl, but it was not sponsored by Maker's Mark. It was sponsored by some tourism campaign from some town in like Illinois. yeah yeah it was uh it was in like an industrial park like it wasn't even like come see illinois it was like come start a i don't know hardware tool manufacturing company like we all games yeah we all ball games are griffs but this is one of the most cheerful griff's

we sent extra points matt brown to the elk grove industrial park it's like sort of kind and near uh uh chicago and he were like they're there are literally elk outside of that thing And that was sponsoring the fucking Bahamas Bowl. So that is the lineage of the Xbox Bowl. It's been sponsored by a non-existent Popeyes and an industrial park like a thousand miles away on the mainland. And then it came here to the Cowboys backup football field. That is just the fucking, like, lore of how we got here. It's called the Xbox Bowl in the year 2025.

PlayStation sponsored a bowl game like a quarter century ago. They sponsored a really big one. um this this is like so emblematic of xbox's place and culture i i i have had you know i've i've had been in the xbox universe for 20 years it's just where my shit is so i have an xbox i'm one of the like eight people who still have one um it's like a storage unit at this point but this is how much money they got yeah it's like i don't know it's got my youtube tv presave whatever on but like but jason now this bowl game feels so much better in your hands As opposed to Popeyes?

No, it doesn't. Like this is how much, like Xbox is down to its last $200,000 and they use it to sponsor a ball game. The teams in the game. Now is, this is a weird year for them to start this. Yeah. The teams in the game are phenomenal. Arkansas State is here.

Six and six under Butch Jones. Sure. They've had an eventful year. They played Arkansas finally for the first time. How to go. Don't worry about it. Like, it's sort of like the most like, oh, right, that's a football team team. Missouri State, shout out to them.

We're about to make news for people who have learned that Missouri State is eligible to play in one of these bowls. We ran out of six and six teams, so first year FBS rookie Missouri State is here. Excellent job by them. I do love this for them. I'm sorry they don't get to go to the Bahamas. They get to play in the Xbox game. Their coach has gone to Colise Carolina. The coach is, of course, Bobby Petrino's son-in-law.

Their interim coach is, of course, Bobby Petrino's son. disregard that those people aren't bobby petrino we're not going to blame them for missouri state all are not bobby petrino this this school this this program was formerly coached by bobby petrano it takes a long time to scrape him out of the walls in the carpet um because of his residues um but like man i love this fucking game i love everything about it at arkansas state we probably could have found a funnier team to put in here but honestly it'd be kind of pushing it