For college football fans, December is the greatest time of the year.

It began Saturday with several conference championship games, including Auburn and Oregon winning to lock up their spots in the BCS national championship game.

The college football action continues today as the final BCS standings and bowl games are announced.

Some teams have already accepted bowl invitations, including Southern Miss, which will be playing in the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl in St. Petersburg, where they will play a Big East team.

However, the SEC teams won’t receive their bowl invitations until today, which means LSU and Mississippi State fans have been pondering where to purchase their bowl tickets and hotel rooms.

LSU is most likely bound for either the Cotton Bowl in Dallas or the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, Fla., while Mississippi State is probably bound for either the Chic-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta or the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.

After everyone finds out their bowl destinations today, it will be a long couple of weeks before my favorite three weeks of the year begin.

The first bowl game takes place on Dec. 18 and there is a bowl game almost every day until the BCS national championship game on Jan. 10.

While some people might not care very much about college bowl games, I really enjoy watching them, even the ones involving mid-major teams.

There are several reasons I love the bowl games so much.

First of all, I like watching teams from different conferences that don’t normally play against each other face off.

It’s fun seeing an SEC teams play against a Big 10 team or a Pac 10 team play against an ACC squad.

Conference bragging rights are normally on the line, and fans will tout their conference’s bowl record when they brag about how strong their league is.

Another thing I love about the bowl games is how many teams get a chance to celebrate a good season.

In other sports, only one team gets to hold up a trophy at the end of the season.

But in college football, 35 teams will get the opportunity to hold a trophy aloft.

Yeah, some might say that 35 bowl games are too many, especially when there are only 120 teams that play in the Bowl Championship Subdivision.

But the looks on the players faces after they win a bowl game and hold up the bowl trophy makes those 35 games worth it.

Perhaps my favorite moment from last year’s bowl season was the University of Idaho winning the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho with a last-second touchdown and 2-point conversion.

Idaho hadn’t been to a bowl game in over 10 years, and the players celebrated like they had just won a national championship.

Everyone knows Idaho, and other schools of similar size, have no shot to win a national championship, but a bowl victory was good enough for them.

So once we find out who will fill the 35 bowl slots, it will be a long two weeks before my favorite time of the year begins.