Paul Johnson and Jon Barry won the 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl Challenge charity golf tournament. Paul Johnson is clearly as bewildered as we are to learn he excels at the serene sport of golf. (Abell Images)

The Chick-fil-A Bowl’s annual charity golf tournament kicks off this weekend, forcing 16 ACC and SEC skippers to mute their phones (probably), partner up with celebrity alums from their current programs and battle for scholarship dollars in the carefully sculpted wilds of Georgia. The pairings for the main event have been released. We have some thoughts.

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Obie gets to take off the suit (probably), but staging December and January games can be a full-time gig. (AP)

We joked Monday about how we would’ve loved to work for the Fiesta Bowl during the John Junker heyday, because who doesn’t enjoy attending $30,000 birthday parties? But you, gentle readers, may be as surprised to learn that bowl employees work more than four days a year as our own mother was to learn that we work more than four months. While recuperating from the crush of bowl season, Campus Union spoke with bowl worker bees and executive types busy putting bows on their 2011 games while laying the groundwork for the 2012 postseason. Here’s what we learned.

Months of moving parts

Every postseason college football contests maintains a year-round calendar of sorts, though we were surprised on both ends of the spectrum by just how many and how few year-round employees are retained by certain games. (For comparison’s sake: The Outback Bowl employs five year-round staffers; the Music City Bowl has nine, most of whom double up with duties to the Nashville Sports Council; and the Orange Bowl has 30, with plans to bring on an additional nine full-time positions this year to accommodate preparations for hosting the BCS title game.) The timeline varies wildly based on available personnel, resources, the organization’s presence in the community and how the game approaches its own team selection process. The first scout I personally laid eyes on last season was a very nice lady representing the Champs Sports Bowl in Morgantown in Week 3 during LSU-West Virginia. Both squads, of course, would go on to win their conferences and play in BCS bowls, but that early in the season, bowl scouts share the same disadvantage as the rest of us: All they have to go on is preseason rankings and their own prognostications.

Still, for a game like the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which draws from two of the more voluminous conferences, scouting all potentially eligible teams in person in a single season is a daunting task. Volunteer CFA scouts go out in Week 1 to begin assessing various SEC and ACC squads, though the bowl’s selection committee does not convene until November.

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Auburn put up a valiant protein consumption effort, but Virginia won this year's Chick-fil-A Bowl Challenge meat-eating contest, averaging 9.03 pounds consumed per player. (Abell Images)

The 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl is just a day away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an Xs and Os breakdown, check out Cory McCartney’s game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? The game ACC and SEC lifers grew up with as the Peach Bowl is now sponsored by God’s House O’Chicken.

• Does Chick-fil-A sell its notoriously fabulous peach milkshakes at the former Peach Bowl, because that would be a really great business plan. Not that we have ever seen, but here’s a contact page in case there’s anything you’d like to suggest!

• Where will this game be played? Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, home field of the Falcons, the Georgia State Panthers and the SEC Championship Game.

• When is it on television? Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on New Year’s Eve. The game will be televised on ESPN.

• Whom does it feature? An ACC-SEC clash since time immemorial.

• What about this year? Blue and orange all around! 8-4 UVA and 7-5 Auburn get to ring in 2012 in the ATL.

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