The Cotton Bowl, an unlikely candidate for ‘fewest total points in a bowl game’ has, for now, taken the title away from the Northwestern-Utah game. Missouri beats Ohio State 14-3.
Ryan Day may be feeling some heat from OSU fans.
Mike Nolan
How did OSU wind up with such a weak Big Ten schedule for 2024??
Only Oregon from the new West Coast teams, plus Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Michigan State and Nebraska. They get Iowa at home but have to go to Penn State, though they get Michigan at home.
Contrast that with Michigan’s schedule, which has USC, Washington and Oregon, rounded out by Minnesota, Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana and Northwestern before the trip to the Shoe.
I think if Day loses at home to Michigan next year, he’s gone—no matter what happens otherwise.
Happy NU year,
Paul
Paul H. Levinson
Penn State underwhelmed again in the Peach Bowl, losing to Ole MIss 38-25. One of these days Franklin is gonna run out of brownie points in Happy Valley.
Apparently winning all but two games in the regular season is enough for PSU fans but with the west coast four there may be more than two top 10 teams on the schedule for him to lose to. That may change things, especially if it keeps them out of the playoffs. Maybe then, PSU will be ranked on their performance and not their name.
The air came out of FSU’s ‘national championship’ claim today, as they got walloped by Georgia 63-3, the 60 point winning margin being the largest ever in a bowl game.
I am glad, now they can stop talking about the TCU score!
now they can stop talking about the TCU score!
Do you maybe mean the FSU-LSU game?
Oh, you mean Georgia’s win over TCU in last year’s championship game. :sigh: If Michigan hadn’t flubbed the sem-finals I think they would have given Georgia a better fight than TCU did.
At one time NU held that dubious distinction after the loss in the Alamo Bowl to Nebraska. Glad that has fallen by the wayside
Harry
Injuries, transfers and opt-outs affected FSU a lot more than they did Georgia, the recruiting calendar is a mess, but not an easily fixable one.
Ultimately due to the playoff expansion bowl games should be eliminated as too many quality players are opting out.
Teams that have high expectations and don’t make the playoffs lose too many players.
I think if you eliminated bowl games, but gave bowl qualifying teams extra underclassmen practices the coaches wouldn’t complain. I don’t know personally, but I would guess the first 3 weeks after the season ends is entirely backups and only game week is starters.
I don’t see bowl games going away any time soon, it’d leave too many holes in ESPN"s calendar for December, among other things.
And while it wasn’t a meaningful game, I thoroughly enjoyed the Northwestern-Utah game. And that’s been true of a lot of bowl games between teams who will seldom make the playoffs, even at 16 teams.
I fully expect the playoffs to expand to 16 teams after a few years at 12. And that might take care of the transfers and opt-outs situation, because those seem to affect teams that ALMOST made the playoffs more than the 6-7-8 win teams, where a bowl game is still seen as a reward for success in the regular season.
Maybe the transfer window shouldn’t start until the day after the national championship game? And that might mean eliminating the December early signing window, maybe with a smaller signing window for those who are enrolling in January
I do agree that something needs to be done to allow teams a few practices after the regular season ends, even the 1-11 teams!
Bowl games are unlikely to go anywhere. The TV ratings more than justify their existence.
Plus, we got this year a great bit of Americana — the Pop-Tarts experience
A marketing coup, that one.
The NU / Utah game may turn out to have some meaning; we could wind up getting ranked. I think we were about 29th prior to the game. In the espn computer rankings Utah , after their loss , was 25th
Maybe they were in the computer rankings, but neither the AP nor the coaches poll had any votes for the Cats pre-bowl. Some recognition would be nice.
(FSU’s coach got the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year award, FWIW.)
Our bowl games put $120 million in Orlando’s economy, not chump change
Reportedly, FSU played with 29 players out (portal, NFL prospects, just sitting out). The Bowl games are ruined for that reason. Let’s just go back to the days of 4 bowls: Rose, Sugar, Cotton, and Orange.
In contrast, Georgia had most of its players available. FSU has already proven it has different motivations both as a school and as a group of players, and winning a bowl game other than in the playoffs is not high on anyone’s list there.
75 years ago today, the NU year began with NU winning the Rose Bowl. I had the privilege 15+ years ago of speaking with several of those Wildcats.
https://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/fall2008/feature/rosebowl.html