Morning Report: In St. Pete, the Vacant Bowl

There must be something about Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, that keeps fans away.

Even though the University of South Florida was playing in its backyard Saturday in the inaugural St. Petersburg Bowl - at the Trop - it had the lowest reported attendance of any postseason game so far.

Community leaders, however, were thrilled about the crowd of 25,205 that saw the Bulls batter Memphis, 41-14. They had feared an empty stadium, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Alabama is letting a prominent local banker, James M. Fail, put his name on the visitors' locker room at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, the Miami Herald reports.

Yes, the Crimson Tide's opponents will be getting ready in the "Fail Room."

Frank Beamer took Virginia Tech to its 16th consecutive bowl game last night, which meant a 16th ring for the Hokies coach - and a 20-7 win over Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl.

"Our seniors always design our bowl rings, and so we've got 16 of these," Beamer said. "But the thing I've found is they design big rings. They don't design small rings. They usually are big.

"So I just kind of wear the one from last year."

Beamer said he's hopeful that one day one of his senior classes will choose a more modest ring size than the current ones that seem to always be a bit larger than the previous model.

But he won't use any influence in making that happen.

"I'm going to go with what they design," Beamer said.

The lowest asking price for a pair of "cheap seats" at next week's Bowl Championship Series title game between Florida and Oklahoma in Miami is $685, according to StubHub.com.

Two tickets behind the Oklahoma bench have been listed at $25,000 - per seat. For the luxury-minded, a 40-person box was selling for $98,826.

Former Denver quarterback John Elway, a Hall of Famer, has been mentioned as a possible part of the management team that would replace Mike Shanahan, who was fired Tuesday as the Broncos' coach and executive vice president of football operations.

So, what does Shanahan think of that?

"We know what John Elway means to Denver," Shanahan said Wednesday during his farewell news conference. "If I was a free agent coming in and John Elway was there, I'd sign for no money."