Kickoff: Bowl Season Official Newsletter – January 2023

MEMORIES TO LAST A LIFETIME

Bowl Season Once Again Proves to be a Tradition Like No Other

By KEVIN M c NAMARA

The Troy Trojans will certainly remember the Duluth Trading Cure Bowl for a very long time.

Matched up against nationally-ranked TexasSan Antonio, the Trojans traveled to Orlando’s Exploria Stadium chasing a bucket-load of history. A win would extend a fabulous winning streak to 11 games, tie the program’s record of 12 victories in a season and secure the team’s fifth consecutive Bowl Season victory.

Who says bowl games don’t matter?

After leaving with a hard-fought 18-12 win, Troy coach Jon Sumrall knew his team had cemented itself into Troy football history.

“To hold those guys to 12 points, I don't know what to say,” Sumrall said. “We stayed together all year, and I could not be more proud. I just hope they keep us in the Top 25."

Don’t worry about that, coach. The Associated Press voters rewarded the Trojans with the 19th spot in their final poll, just behind Notre Dame and ahead of programs like UCLA and South Carolina. Pretty heady stuff.

Stories like Troy’s unfolded throughout Bowl Season. The opportunity to leave a legacy behind with a program-changing victory is just one benefit bowl games offer. Seeing high-profile matchups, catching the emergence of next year’s new stars and

“We stayed together all year, and I could not be more proud. I just hope they keep us in the Top 25 .”

– JON SUMRALL Troy Head Coach

honoring goodbyes to some college football heroes check a lot of boxes as well.

Consider two games on Bowl Season’s first weekend. After two failed attempts due to Covid restrictions, the inaugural Wasabi Fenway Bowl kicked off and just happened to match long-time rivals who haven’t crossed paths in nine seasons. That put the Keg of Nails at stake in Boston and Louisville got the job done, besting Cincinnati, 24-7.

On the same day down in Atlanta, Jackson State and Deion Sanders were heavy favorites and playing for an undefeated season against North Carolina Central in the Cricket Celebration Bowl. But the Eagles, playing with a chip on their shoulder pads, scored a 41-34 overtime upset to end JSU in Sanders’ final game before he hopped to Colorado.

While many programs plan on a bowl trip every season, the opportunity for Bowl Season success is a thrill for many others. Eastern Michigan, a team that battles in the balanced Mid-American Conference, hadn’t won a bowl game since the 1987 California Raisin Bowl. That streak ended with a 41-27 win over San Jose St. in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

“We do have goals and we wanted to with the MAC championship, so we failed at our primary goal,” said Eagles coach Chris Creighton. “While at the same

time we did some things this year that haven’t been done in a long time… I just know, and I’ve been doing this for 26 years as a head coach, that when we live our (team) theme it ends up being a special season. So we just called ourselves bowl champions!”

The untimely death of Mississippi State coaching legend Mike Leach was certainly felt during Bowl Season. At the TaxAct Texas Bowl in Houston, Texas Tech honored its former coach by lining up in his trademark Air-Raid formation and taking an intentional delay of game penalty on the game’s first play. Opponent Ole Miss responded with class, declining the penalty.

And then on Jan. 2 at the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, the Mississippi State marching band spelled out “LEACH” and a portrait of the coach looked onto the field from a perch atop the stadium’s iconic pirate ship. After a fourth quarter rally led to a 19-10 win over Illinois, MSU interim coach Zach Arnett said “I know there’s a cowbell ringing down from heaven.”

You want exciting games? How about the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl, a longstanding game that had been cancelled each of the previous two seasons due to Covid issues. Trailing All-American Drake Maye and North Carolina 24-14 early in the fourth quarter, Oregon got busy behind

its own QB star as Bo Nix threw two fourth quarter touchdown passes. His second to Chase Cota came with just 19 seconds left, but the game wasn’t won until Camden Lewis’ point-after kick bounced off the left upright and through for a wild 28-27 win.

How about a vote for the single best individual performance, the Best Actor of Bowl Season? Here’s a vote for Southern Mississippi back Frank Gore, Jr. who happened to rush for 329 yards in the Golden Eagles’ 38-24 win over Rice in the LendingTree Bowl. That’s a new record for most rushing yards ever in a bowl game.

Of course the excitement throughout Bowl Season reached a crescendo on New Year’s Eve with the thrilling, back-and-forth CFP semifinal games at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Anyone longing for memorable playoff battles after a few too many uncompetitive semifinal games certainly saw the best college football can offer. As Georgia coach Kirby Smart said after his eventual National Championship team out-lasted Ohio State (42-41) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, “This was an emotional roller coaster. It was a heck of a back-and-forth game. It was who’s going to blink, just two really good teams fighting.”

While experiencing a classic bowl game like that one in person delivers one of the unique thrills in sports, the appeal of watching at home on your

television or streaming device is only growing. Bowl games at all levels attracted record-setting TV ratings this past season. The Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl featuring Wake Forest and Missouri attracted 3.53 million viewers, making it the mostwatched TV program on any channel on Dec. 23.

While the College Football Playoff semifinals hit home runs with an average of 22 million TV households tuning in, other bowls opened a lot of eyes. The Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando recorded its highest rating (5.4 million) in 10 years. The TaxSlayer Gator Bowl shootout matching Notre Dame and South Carolina pulled in 5.7 million, its highest number in six years. In all eight bowls eclipsed five million viewers and four raced past 10 million.

Bowl Season Executive Director Nick Carparelli spent his month hopping from one bowl game to another and telling anyone who would listen that the major changes in the sport — and especially to the College Football Playoff — will incorporate much of the current bowl system. Conference affiliations, scheduling, Name/Image/Likeness and other aspects of the business of Bowl Season promise that change will be the only constant.

And so will stories like those at Troy, Mississippi State and the two-time National Champions from Georgia.

Q&A with Bowl Season Executive Director Nick Carparelli

Millions of fans once again attended or watched bowl games on TV this year. What’s your overall view of Bowl Season and its continuing role as the culmination of the college football season?

CARPARELLI: Bowl Season occupies a very important place on the American sports calendar every year. As sports fans, we are driven by the calendar. We know when the major sporting events take place throughout the year, and we look forward to watching them. Bowl Season is played over a threeweek period from mid-December through early January and fans of college football are trained to turn on the TV during that stretch to look for a bowl game to watch. They might not even know which one they will find; they just know that they will find one and they will watch it. This year over 3 million people on average watched the 43 bowl games — 30 games had more than two million viewers, 14 had more than three million, 10 had more than four million and nine games had more than five million people watching. That outrates any alternative sports television programming (other than the NFL) during December and January. In addition, more than 1.5 million people

attended bowl games live in person. Bowl Season is clearly still very meaningful to a lot of people and remains an annual celebration of college football.

The College Football Playoff (CFP) has announced that it will go to 12 teams beginning with the 2024 season. Bowl games will continue to be part of the overall plan to crown a national champion. What is Bowl Season’s position in supporting the College Football Playoff’s efforts and its continuing role in the postseason?

CARPARELLI: College football’s postseason consists of the CFP and Bowl Season, and both are equally important. We need a great mechanism to crown a national champion for our great sport. The new CFP format will accomplish that while generating a lot of excitement for the fans, but Bowl Season is more important to a greater number of institutions and student-athletes than the CFP alone. The majority of football programs across the country cannot realistically challenge for a spot in the CFP on a regular basis. With 130+ FBS institutions, we need more than 12 postseason opportunities to reward deserving

student-athletes at the end of each year. Like I’ve said many times before, anyone who says there are too many bowl games needs to take a deep breath and understand that bowl games do not need to factor into the National Championship equation to be meaningful to those programs and their fanbases who participate in them. Bowl Season and the CFP collectively make up college football’s postseason. They complement one another and are not mutually exclusive. College football needs bowl games as much as it needs the CFP.

There has been a lot of debate about the first round of the CFP being played on the campus site of the higherrated team vs. being played in a neutral site bowl game. There are certainly pros and cons to both. What is your position on this issue?

CARPARELLI: Bowl games have been providing competitively fair, neutral site environments for a very long time. They are uniquely positioned to have all the hospitality components set up in advance — such as hotels, practice sites, dinner venues, etc.

Many college towns will struggle to have the hotel inventory necessary for hosting a game of this magnitude, especially when the participants are determined so close to game day. Bowl organizations are adept at the "quick turnaround" that will be necessary for all playoff games. Most Bowl venues are either in warm-weather climates or are played in domed stadiums — and therefore can take "weather" out of the equation in determining a National Champion. In addition, a lot has been said of the home game atmosphere — which only serves one fan base. Some of the most memorable games in

college football history have been in bowl games where two fan bases fill half of the stadium each and provide a truly unique experience for both schools. It might sound like a good idea now, but if a football program ends up being the visiting team due to a debatable seeding, I am certain they will not think it is fair and appropriate. One of the things that makes college and NCAA postseason competitions unique is that the pinnacle event to crown the national champion has always been held in a neutral site environment. There are too many reasons why college football should maintain this tradition, and there are bowl organizations across the country that are equipped to provide the easiest and best solution to do so.

There have been so many changes in college football with NIL and the transfer portal. No matter what happens in the sport, what will bowl games continue to provide student-athletes and fans when it comes to tradition, but also most importantly — celebration.

CARPARELLI: I don’t think there has ever been as many major changes occurring in intercollegiate athletics at one time as there is now. Managing the new NIL landscape and the new unrestricted free agency known as the transfer portal are difficult enough on their own, but the combination of the two being introduced into the world of college athletics at the same time has created a completely unmanageable situation for football coaches and their programs. That being said, Bowl Games continue to provide a unique and meaningful experience for the student-athletes, something that remains important to the people in

“ I don’t think there has ever been as many major changes occurring in intercollegiate athletics at one time as there is now.”

– NICK CARPARELLI Bowl Season Executive Director

charge of college athletics. Let’s not forget, every other NCAA sport gets to go on a foreign tour in the summer. Basketball programs play in early season tournaments at destinations like Hawaii, Las Vegas, New York, Florida and the Bahamas. The only similar experience that college football has to offer its players is the bowl game experience. Bowl games have been providing life-long memories for players, coaches and fans for over 100 years and will continue to do so well into the future.

Rosters have been depleted in recent years due to COVID, the transfer portal as well as players opting out to prepare for the NFL draft. How big of an issue is this for football programs as they prepare to play in bowl games in early December?

CARPARELLI: I think people pay too much attention to opt-outs when there are relatively so few individuals who choose to do so, and the transfer portal is a problem that is not unique to bowl games. The reality is, on average less than 10 percent of players choose not to participate in their team’s bowl game. With 85 scholarships and the average roster totaling 125 players, there are plenty of underclassmen who can’t wait for an opportunity to get more playing time. The NCAA is also in the process of amending their red-shirt rules which will allow all players to participate in bowl games without losing their red-shirt year, regardless of how many games they’ve played during the regular season. But more importantly, bowl games have always been about opportunities. An opportunity to play another game, against a team you might not normally schedule, at a destination you might not normally go to. They also give players who are next in line on the depth chart a chance to step up and see more time on the field. Fans of each team are given a chance to get a sneak peek at the young players who they will be cheering on next year. College football fans root for their school first — and the players who are on the team at that point in time — just like they rooted for the players from years prior and will root for the players in the years ahead. Let’s not forget, Bowl Season still provides an opportunity for roughly 10,000 student-athletes each year to enjoy a memorable experience while playing in one more football game with their teammates.

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JOIN OUR COMMUNITY:

20+ bowl games events are already part of our community, including the College Football Playoff, Peach Bowl, Cotton Bowl Classic, Sugar Bowl, Charlotte Sports Foundation, Armed Forces Bowl, Birmingham Bowl, Gator Bowl, ReliaQuest Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, Gasparilla Bowl, Cure Bowl, First Responder Bowl, Texas Bowl, Independence Bowl, Frisco Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Fenway Bowl, Celebration Bowl, Rose Bowl Game, MEAC/SWAC Challenge, Clearwater Invitational.

You were a part of helping create the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium a few years ago, and 2022 saw the debut of the Wasabi Fenway Bowl. What has been the reactions from the teams and fans around these bowl games in iconic baseball venues?

CARPARELLI: It is no secret that I am particularly prideful of what the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl has grown to become after 12 years in existence. My passion for the Yankees organization since I was a kid coupled with my role in creating the bowl game back in 2009 gives me great reasons to have interest in their success. I am also so happy that the Wasabi Fenway Bowl was finally able to kick-off their inaugural game after two very difficult years that resulted in it being canceled. Bowl games are about providing meaningful experiences for everyone involved and creating memories that last a lifetime. Spending four-to-five days in two iconic cities — New York and Boston — and playing a football game in two iconic venues — Yankee Stadium & Fenway Park — are certainly experiences that no one will

ever forget. The team photos that are taken with the Yankee Stadium sign in the background in New York and the Green Monster behind them in Boston will undoubtedly be positioned on the walls of many people’s homes & offices for a very long time.

How do you assess the second season for the organization’s official podcast — Bowl Season Stories? What were some of your personal highlights and where do you want to take the series next year?

CARPARELLI: A big part of our mission at Bowl Season is to promote the game of college football in general and the bowl system specifically. We realized early on that in order to do this we needed to be better storytellers. I think our website, newsletters and social media channels do a good job of promoting Bowl Season and shining a light on all of the great things that bowl games have to offer, but I believe our podcast helps tell our stories better than anything else. We recorded 21 episodes in 2021 and over 40,000 people listened. This year we

The Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium has been a success since debuting in 2009.

recorded 20 episodes and are on pace to surpass last year’s listenership. We heard from college football players and coaching legends, members of the media as well as bowl game executive directors. They all spoke about how meaningful bowl games were to them and their teammates and recount memories from those experiences that they will never forget. I encourage anyone who has not yet listened to one of our podcasts to do so. We have had so many great guests; I am sure at least one of them will be interesting to you.

In its second season, Bowl Season Radio provided national coverage for 18 bowl games in 2022-23. How impactive has this partnership been in amplifying the games?

CARPARELLI: The most exciting part about Bowl Season Radio to me is the value we are demonstrating when bowl games choose to work together collectively. I think as Bowl Season the association continues to evolve, we are going to see more bowls come together to create organizational efficiencies that can generate more value to them as a whole instead of doing things independently. Bowl Season Radio is a partnership with First Team Ventures that grew to 18 broadcasts this year. Those broadcasts were cleared on over 100 terrestrial stations and could be heard on Sirius/XM satellite radio by over 34 million people. During these games, we had the opportunity to recap prior games, promote upcoming games and speak about Bowl Season in its entirety. We are hoping to expand the number of bowl games we broadcast next year as we look forward to the 2023 edition of Bowl Season Radio.

Bowl Season celebrated bowl-eligible teams when they reached their sixth win with exclusive “Bowl Bound” T-shirts, which are sustainable for the environment. How did that effort grow in 2022 and what was the overall reaction from studentathletes and teams? Will it continue in 2023?

CARPARELLI: One of the first major goals of every college football team each year is to win six games and become bowleligible. Most programs have goals beyond that but getting that sixth win is a big moment for them, and one that has always been celebrated. Our Bowl Bound shirt program really took off this year. College football coaches and teams had gained familiarity with it last year, and many of them reached out to us this year in advance of their sixth win to make sure their shirts would arrive in time for their next game. Some coaches chose to hand them out in the locker room right after the win, some handed them out at their next team meeting a day or two after the game, while others chose to wait until the end of the season and distribute them at the beginning of Bowl Season itself. The Bowl Bound shirt has quickly become a tradition that everyone looks forward to. The program was enhanced this year through our partnership with Vapor Apparel who provided the shirts made from REPREVE — a fabric created entirely from recycled water bottles. These shirts not only helped celebrate each team as it became bowl eligible, but also contributed to a very important sustainability effort. We are excited to design next year’s shirt soon and anticipate many more Bowl Bound celebrations in 2023.

“ The Bowl Bound shirt has quickly become a tradition that everyone looks forward to .”

– NICK CARPARELLI Bowl Season Executive Director

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BOWL GAMES

EXPERIENCED BY:

10K+

STUDENT-ATHLETES PARTICPATED

1.56M FANS IN ATTENDANCE

Bowl Season Viewership Strong

179M TELEVISION VIEWERS

The average bowl game on ESPN had 13 percent more viewers than the average regular season game on the network. Compared to other sports, bowls also brought in a higher average than regular season NBA, MLB and NHL averages on ESPN last season.

MOST-WATCHED NON-CFP BOWLS

The 39 non-CFP bowl games across ESPN networks, ABC, FOX and CBS averaged 3.03M viewers. → Seven bowl games posted their best audiences in at least five years, while eight games had their best audience in at least four years.

Bowl Viewership Notes

2022-23 CFp Semifinals

The Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on ESPN were the most-watched non-New Year’s Day Semifinals of the CFP era with 22.1M viewers.

• The bowls were the two most-viewed individual Semifinals since 2017-18 and rank as the fourth and fifth best, respectively.

• Both games are among the top-five non-NFL telecasts on broadcast or cable since the start of 2022, and reached more than 42M total viewers between them, 11 percent year-overyear growth.

• The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl secured 22.4M viewers, the mostwatched primetime CFP Semifinal since Year 1 and a top-20 cable telecast of all-time.

• The Vrbo Fiesta Bowl scored 21.7M viewers the third-most watched afternoon CFP Semifinal of the CFP era.

Bryce, Bryce BaBy!

The Allstate Sugar Bowl between Alabama and Kansas State drew 9.1M viewers, the best audience for a noon game leading into the CFP Semifinals on record. 2021

Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young threw for 321 yards and five touchdowns, earning MVP honors.

Tennessee Shines

The Capital One Orange Bowl between Tennessee and Clemson averaged 8.7M viewers on ESPN and ESPNU, the most-watched non-Semifinal Orange Bowl since 2017 (Wisconsin/ Miami). The audience for the window was up 14 percent yearover-year.

Max DUGGAN

Adonai MITCHELL

Bryce YOUNG

Joe MILTON

Inside the Competition

Fiesta Classic

No. 3 TCU downed No. 2 Michigan, 51-45 in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31 as a College Football Playoff (CFP) Semifinal, sending TCU to play for its first National Title since 1938. Michigan and TCU combined for 1,015 yards, including 591 in the second half. The Horned Frogs gave up 45 points, but that also came on 18 Wolverines’ drives. TCU exceeded or matched several previous seasonhighs for Michigan opponents, including: most points, most rushing yards (263), and longest run given up (69 to Emari Demercado). TCU became the first Big 12 team to appear in the CFP National Championship the following week.

Tops in the ACC

Wake Forest QB Sam

Hartman completed 23 of 36 passes for 280 yards and three touchdowns in a 27-17 win over Missouri in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl on Dec. 23. Hartman passed Clemson’s Tajh Boyd to set an ACC record for most career touchdowns at 110. He came up just 33 yards short of joining NC State’s Philip Rivers as the only quarterbacks in ACC history to reach 13,000 career passing yards.

Sam HARTMAN

Bowl Season Gameday

Live returned for its second season in 202223 — the best way for college football fans to follow all the bowl games. A landing page at BowlSeason.com, Gameday Live gave fans a chance to access live coverage of each and every bowl game. The page included live tv broadcasts, radio and realtime stats for every bowl game in action that day and throughout Bowl Season.

Sportradar is the trusted partner to more than 65 leagues and federations across the globe, including Bowl Season. Sportradar helps ensure the highest quality data at the fastest speeds, helping track stats in real time so that fans can learn of numbers like what was seen at the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando.

Florida State and Oklahoma combined for 1,083 yards and four second-half lead changes in a 35-32 Seminoles victory on Dec. 29 at the Cheez-It Bowl. FSU’s Jordan Travis threw for 418 yards and two scores in the Noles’ first bowl win since 2017. Oklahoma got a good chunk of their yardage on the ground with 253 yards of rushing despite missing four starting offensive linemen. It was OU’s 24th straight bowl appearance.

Just Peachy

Georgia returned to the CFP National Championship after defeating Ohio State, 42-41 in the Chickfil-A Peach Bowl on Dec. 31. Stetson Bennett completed 23-of-34 passes for 398 yards and three touchdowns in the win. The two teams combined for exactly 1,000 yards (UGA 533, OSU 467). The Bulldogs went on to become the first repeat champion in the CFP era.

Stetson BENNETT

Birmingham Bomber

East Carolina’s Holton Ahlers threw a Birmingham Bowl- record five touchdown passes and accounted for a game-record six TDs to help the Pirates beat Coastal Carolina 53-29 in the TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl on Dec. 27. Selected as the game’s MVP, Ahlers threw for 300 yards on 26-of-38 passing, rushed for 37 yards and a touchdown and caught a pass for 14 yards for the Pirates.

Liberty Milestones

Arkansas withstood a furious Kansas comeback with a 55-53 win in three overtimes on Dec. 28 in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. The two teams met for the first time in 116 years, and Liberty Bowl records fell. KU quarterback Jalon Daniels passed for 544 yards and five touchdowns, setting

Liberty Bowl records for passing yards, TD passes, completions (37), and total TDs scored (6). Arkansas gained 394 of its 681 yards on the ground (a Razorback record for a bowl game for total yards). The 108 total points were the fourth-most ever in a bowl game. “We got lucky at the end, but we're Liberty Bowl champs and I'm pretty excited,” Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said afterwards.

KJ JEFFERSON

Like Father, Like Son

Southern Miss running back Frank Gore Jr. ran for a bowl-record 329 yards and accounted for three touchdowns on Dec. 17 at the LendingTree Bowl in Mobile, AL. Gore, the son of former NFL star Frank Gore, had a 64-yard TD run, threw for an 18-yard TD pass, and ran for another 55-yard score in the fourth quarter. The former record (317 yards) was previously held by Appalachian State’s Camerun Peoples in the 2020 Myrtle Beach Bowl vs. North Texas.

Frank GORE JR.

Turning Things Around

Fresno State completed the biggest in-season turnaround in FBS history by defeating Washington State 29-6 in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl Presented by Stifel on Dec. 17. The win gave Fresno State the distinction of being the first team to get to 10 wins after starting the season 1-4 (winning their final nine games). Jordan Mims accounted for 232 all-purpose yards, outgaining Washington State (182 offensive yards) on his own. It was Fresno State’s fourth consecutive bowl win.

Bowl Season and First Team Ventures came together again to host Bowl Season Radio, which provided exclusive live national radio/audio play-by-play coverage for 18 college bowl games in 2022-23. Bowl Season

Radio aired on terrestrial radio stations throughout the country, as well as Sirius XM satellite radio. In addition, the games streamed live on Tune-In, Audacy and The Varsity Network apps.

Airing it Out in NOLA

Austin Reed passed for four touchdowns and an R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl-record 497 yards, leading Western Kentucky to a 44-23 win over South Alabama on Dec. 21. Reed’s numbers gave him 4,744 yards and 40 touchdowns on the season, both which led the nation. The Hilltoppers also set a New Orleans Bowl record with 522 teamyards passing. Both teams combined for 74 completions, tying a bowl record.

2022-23 BOWL SEASON TOP PERFORMERS

CFP Semifinal