The Marriott Renaissance Center might have undergone a $100 million renovation, but it's still far from being the Regent Beverly Wilshire, whose presidential suite hosted Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.

Comparing a hotel that a Motor City Bowl participant (Boston College) is staying in with that of a Rose Bowl team (Washington State) is as unfair as comparing the games themselves or even the pregame player itineraries.

Boston College has stayed three days -- including Christmas -- in a city with 30-degree weather. The activities have included a dinner, a night at an arcade hall and a hospital visit.

Washington State and Oklahoma will be staying at least a week in sunny California. They will tan, go to Disneyland and watch a taping of the Jay Leno Show.

Even eating is a tradition at the Rose Bowl. This year, Oklahoma and Washington State will face off in the 47th annual Lawry's Beef Bowl. Since 1956, 15,720 players and coaches have consumed more than 62,000 pounds of roasted prime rib. The total amount of one pound steaks are counted and whichever team eats the most wins.

Last year, Nebraska ate 441 pounds to Miami's 428 pounds. According to Lawry's Beef Bowl stats guru Todd Erickson, the team that has eaten the most prime rib has won 33 times in the last 46 years. Lawry's even keeps stats on the all-time high. Ed Muransky, a 6-foot-7, 280-lb. freshman offensive lineman from the University of Michigan ate eight pounds of prime rib before the 1977 Rose Bowl. He did not play in the game.

But for all the pageantry of the BCS bowls, smaller bowls outside of the nation's vacation hotspots know they aren't competing with the elite, but they try to do their best to entertain the players.

The Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl is taking Iowa State and Boise State on snowmobile rides. Wake Forest and Oregon players will receive a free ticket to a Seattle Supersonics game, courtesy of the Seattle Bowl. For a bit of local flavor, the two squads will face off in a salmon fish toss at Pike Place Market and compete in a timed rib-eating contest at Pyramid Alehouse.

"The bowl game is the crown jewel of the whole experience, but we try to see the whole week as one big celebration," said Jim Haugh, the Seattle Bowl's executive director.

The Mainstay Independence Bowl had a similar challenge being in Shreveport, La., with Christmas in the middle of the team's stay.

"Before people come here they usually have some pretty negative thoughts about our city," said Glen Krupica, the game's executive director. "We try to dispel those thoughts."

While Krupica says events like the welcome party with a hypnotist can make a difference -- the tour of the Barksdale Air Force Base was cancelled because of security reasons -- he says the close-knit community support is the best thing the city has to offer.

"Nobody gets lost in Shreveport," Krupica said. "From the minute the teams arrive, they are the focal point and it's just not that way in other cities that are so big that it's hard to even know that there's a game to be played."

Showing one team around town might be a bit harder for Krupica's staff, given that an Ole Miss fifth-year senior has been to the bowl three times in his college career.

There could be one edge the smaller bowls have over the BCS variety. Getting distracted in Detroit, Boise, Seattle and Shreveport is a whole lot tougher.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at darren.rovell@espn3.com.