Did you enjoy Monday’s MPC Computers Bowl? Or did you turn on the TV, see the blue turf of Bronco Stadium and feel a little more despair?

After all, if the Humanitarian Bowl will sell out, should we abandon all hope for humanity?

Probably not, unless the Rose Bowl becomes the Depends Incontinence Relief Bowl. Come to think of it, what could be more appropriate for the Granddaddy of all bowls?

Changing real names for product names is nothing new. But the annual sighting of a Miss AutoZone Liberty Bowl sure makes you long for the days when a Sun Bowl was a Sun Bowl.

Or if you’re really fed up, it makes you want to take a weed-whacker to the next bowl that sells its name.

If that’s your inclination, you’ll probably grab a Poulan Weed Eater. Which is why all this bowl identity theft is here to stay.

Back when bowls were still named mostly after fruits and animals, a company in Shreveport, La., decided to partner with the city’s postseason football game. The Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl was launched in 1991.

Along with it came about 29 million jokes. If a fan, writer or comedian wanted to make fun of bowls, “Poulan Weed Eater” became the go-to gag.

“It didn’t bother us at all,” said Glen Owens, marketing service manager for Poulan.

The whole point was to raise the name recognition of lovely little Shreveport and move product. Admit it, how many of you knew a Weed Eater from a Weed Whacker from a Weed Be Gone? Probably about as many as know how to pronounce Poulan.

“It’s Po-lan,” Owens said, “like Poland.”

They don’t mind if you pronounce it Czechoslovakia as long as you buy a Weed Eater when your yard turns into a jungle.

Poulan didn’t start the name game, but it came along as the postseason party was filling up.

There were 11 bowls in 1976 and 18 in 1991. Now there are 28, and it’s hard to tell the EV1.net Houston Bowl from the MasterCard Alamo Bowl from the PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl.

The Sun Bowl is now the Vitalis Sun Bowl. I thought the last bottle of Vitalis was buried with Ed Sullivan. But if you’re a product that wants to get noticed, buying a bowl makes business sense.

The beneficiaries are the schools and conferences, who’ve seen total bowl payouts rise about $70 million in the past six years. This year’s tally is $160 million, though I’m not sure a lot of bowls are getting their money’s worth.

To most people, the Sugar Bowl will never be the Nokia Sugar Bowl. Those big bowls must look at little old Shreveport with envy.

What happened there was a harmonic convergence of an obscure game and goofy product. As America joked, the boys in Shreveport laughed.

The Poulan Weed Eater is still the name most people trot out when they make fun of bowl season. And it doesn’t even exist anymore.

Poulan took its Weed Eater and left in 1998 when the company reorganized and moved its headquarters to Augusta, Ga.