Kickoff: Bowl Season Official Newsletter – September 2023

CONSISTENCY AMONGST CHANGE

As College Football Rapidly Evolves, Bowl Season Remains a Vital Component to the Sport’s Postseason

By KEVIN M c NAMARA

So, college football fans, what’s new as this 2023 season kicks off? What’s not new? How about some splashy new additions to several major conferences, from the Big 12, to the American, to Conference USA. If you can’t tell which conference is home to Central Florida, Rice or Liberty, join the party.

Then there’s free agency, or the transfer portal. Yes, the Sam Hartman who starred and put up record numbers in the ACC at Wake Forest is the same gun-slinger now at Notre Dame. Don’t know what a Bear Alexander is? The defensive lineman jumped from national champion Georgia to Southern Cal. Let’s just say the portal is good for game day program sales.

How about when the forces that are shifting the tides in college football intersect? So Cincinnati, which has roared through the American and into major bowl games the last few years, is jumping to the Big 12. The Bearcats also welcome a new coach in Scott Satterfield, who leaves Louisville. He replaces Luke Fickell, who jumped to Wisconsin. Got all that?

Maybe that’s the defining quality of college football these days. Change is everywhere, from conference realignment and TV network affiliation to NameImage-Likeness and the growth of the College Football Playoff. It’s best to embrace the changes because more is seemingly around the corner.

Sam Hartman breaks the ACC career TD passing record in Wake Forest’s 27-17 win over Missouri in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl.

“While all of these major changes occurring in intercollegiate athletics do have an impact on Bowl Season, they do not change what we do,” said Bowl Season executive director Nick Carparelli. “Our mission remains consistent — to promote the game of college football by providing meaningful experiences and life-long memories for players, coaches, fans, universities and communities across the country every year from late December through early January.”

The biggest change to Bowl Season is actually just one year away. The CFP is locked in as a four-team event in 2023 but growing to 12 in 2024. Details are still being negotiated but the bowl

system will remain a vital component to college football’s postseason.

In the meantime, let’s introduce a few newcomers. The Mobile Alabama Bowl has a new title sponsor in 68 Ventures. In Texas, the Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl is welcomed to the calendar and the football fans in Orlando will now enjoy the Pop-Tarts Bowl at Camping World Stadium.

Many other new wrinkles abound in college football this season. First are some fan-friendly rule changes intended to cut game times back from the three hour, 22 minutes we saw in 2022. This year the game clock will continue to run after a team earns a first down. A gained first down will still stop the clock during the last two

“Our mission remains consistent — to promote the game of college football by providing meaningful experiences and life-long memories for players, coaches, fans, universities and communities across the country every year from late December through early January.”

– NICK CARPARELLI Bowl Season Executive Director

minutes of either half. This will certainly necessitate changes by offensive coordinators everywhere.

“This rule change is a small step intended to reduce the overall game time and will give us some time to review the impact of the change," said Kirby Smart, co-chair of the rules committee and head coach at Georgia.

Also new this year: teams cannot call consecutive timeouts, a move principally deployed to freeze a field goal kicker; any penalty that occurs at the end of the first or third quarter will carry over into the next quarter; and referees will stop the game to review all targeting penalties that are called during the course of play.

The coaching carousel always spins and this year some big names have landed at some national programs. They include the previously mentioned Satterfield (Cincinnati) and Fickell (Wisconsin); Jeff Brohm at Louisville, Hugh Freeze at Auburn, Matt Rhule at Nebraska and Hall of Fame defensive back Deion Sanders at Colorado.

What’s not changing in college football?

The impact that Bowl Season’s 43 games have on the players, coaches, fans and communities the contests are played in. Consider that the Birmingham Bowl, for example, has generated an estimated $173 million in economic impact for the local community over its first 16 seasons. Bowl executive director Mark

Newly hired head coach Luke Fickell joins the Wisconsin sideline for their win in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.

Meadows is thrilled that the game has donated over $430,000 to the Quarterbacking Children’s Health Foundation, the charitable arm of the Monday Morning Quarterback Club.

Successful stories like that abound throughout Bowl Season’s partners. After a regular season of heated conference rivalries, great wins and tough losses, the fortunate teams that advance to Bowl Season revel in the annual celebration of college football. That’s where the bands do their thing, the players strut their stuff and the fans in the stands and at home on television take in the scene.

This year’s Bowl Season kicks off on December 16 with seven games filling the schedule. The College Football Playoff semifinals are scheduled for the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl, both on New Year’s Day. The national championship game is set for January 8 at NRG Stadium in Houston.

So it’s time to welcome back college football, a game that’s embracing change and striving to build on its great history. After a fall filled with new heroes and memorable moments, another year will conclude with a fantastic Bowl Season.

Partnership Spotlight

DRIVING NEW REVENUE TO BOWL GAMES:

Event Dynamic’s proprietary and industryleading AI technology brings new, goalexceeding ticket revenue to college football’s biggest stages. Our latest bowl game partner applied Event Dynamic technology to their primary and secondary markets, allowing for a complete rescaling of its seat prices, which ultimately landed 40% above their projected revenue budget.

MORE ABOUT EVENT DYNAMIC

Event Dynamic’s AI-based ticketing platform begins by looking at thousands of variables including weather, player health, and more. As each of these variables changes, our technology automatically adapts ticketing strategies and prices without human intervention, allowing venues and teams to optimize attendance and revenue without significant human resources manually running numbers. We’ve also developed more specific strategy enhancers such as ‘The TV Button’ — which enhances the sell-through of seats in view of television cameras in an automated fashion, ultimately giving full control, at a low resource level, back to our partnering teams and venues.

The Bowl Season Stories Podcast is Locked

and Loaded for Season Three

The official podcast of Bowl Season continued its upward trajectory during season two, showing continual growth in the podcast landscape.

With almost 80,000 downloaded episodes, Bowl Season Stories joined a trip down memory lane with stories from current and legendary players such as Charlie Ward, Stephon Gilmore, Brady Quinn and Deion Branch, among others.

Added into the mix this year was current New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, WWE superstar Thaddeus Bullard a.k.a Titus O’Neil, Former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay and Fitness Influencer Callie Bundy.

Key college football analysts from across the country such as Ross Dellenger, Pat Forde, Molly McGrath, and Ryan McGee gave their hottest takes

and predictions surrounding the college football landscape, and touched on their favorite Bowl Season moments.

Current college head football coaches were added to the line-up of guests last year including Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire and Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson who shared with our listeners why Bowl Games are so important to their football programs.

With a new college football season now in full swing, Bowl Season Stories is returning with many more of the magical moments and matchups on all streaming platforms. Season three is ready to roll, and Bowl Season Stories will continue to pull back the curtain on personal stories from athletes, insights from lead analysts on the college teams that may make a big move in 2023, while reminiscing the best bowl game traditions.

Bowl Season and First Team Ventures joined together again with Bowl Season Radio, providing exclusive live national radio/audio play-by-play coverage for 18 college bowl games.

TOTAL REACH MORE THAN 34M

ALL GAMES AIRED ON SIRIUS XM

Also streamed live on The Varsity Network, Tune-In, Audacy apps, and BowlSeason.com

READY TO LAUNCH

Many Teams Have High Aspirations for the 2023 Season Coming Off Their Bowl Game Win

By KEVIN M c NAMARA

Teams that can sustain success in Bowl Season are the ones that build into dominant programs, not one-hit-wonders. But that consistent winning needs to start sometime and these teams opened plenty of eyes with their victories in Bowl Season and can dream of more success in 2023:

FRESNO STATE 29 6

The Bulldogs owned no bowl dreams after a 1-4 start to their season but once quarterback Jake Haener caught fire all bets were off. A season-ending nine game winning streak marked the biggest inseason turnaround in Football Bowl Subdivision history. Haener threw for two TD’s and the Bulldogs enjoyed a career-best day from running back Jordan Mims who rolled for 232 all-purpose yards to outgain the Cougars (182) by himself. The Mountain West champs have won their last four bowl games.

Fresno State Washington

Jordan MIMS

Partnership Spotlight

TAILGATING SHOULD BE EASY

Tailgreeter was created to ensure that everyone has a place to party on game day. Whether you’re attending an out-of-town game and can’t complete your normal setup, or you’re new to the area and looking to meet new, like-minded people, fans can find their place on Tailgreeter.com. No planning. No setup. No clean-up. We make it easy to #JoinTheParty!

ELEVATING GAME DAY EXPERIENCE TO CREATE INCREMENTAL REVENUE STREAMS

Tailgreeter operates on a business model that allows event organizers, universities, venues and groups to generate incremental revenue, via revenue share, without stretching current resources. Our network of over 300 tailgate hosts across the country makes for a plug-nplay ecosystem to optimize Bowl Week, Game Day and everything in between. From watch parties to all-inclusive tailgates to post-game parties, fans can show up early, party with hundreds of their closest new friends; and then enjoy the game — all within their budget and without any surprises.

TALK TO TAILGREETER!

Let’s talk about how we can elevate game day and create new streams of revenue. Contact us today at info@tailgreeter.com. After all, tailgating should be easy!

WESTERN KENTUCKY

Western Kentucky

South Alabama

Conference USA followers knew all about Austin Reed, Malachi Corley and the rest of the Hilltoppers pass-happy offense before the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl

Now the rest of the country is clued in. Reed led the country in passing yards last season (4,746) after throwing for 497 and four TD’s against the Jaguars. WKU begins this season as a favorite in Conference USA.

44

23

Malachi CORLEY

Few teams in the country are hoping to use bowl success as a jump to even bigger goals than the Seminoles. After three and five-win seasons under coach Mike Norvell, FSU jumped back to its accustomed double-digit victory neighborhood (10-3) record thanks to an exciting comeback win over the Sooners. Quarterback Jordan Travis accounted for 468 yards of offense and is regarded as one of the top five throwers in this year’s deep QB crop. FSU has eight starters back from a team that finished 10th in the nation in total offense and was ranked in most preseason Top 10’s.

This may be the final Pac-12 season to crow about but the conference is set to go out with a bang. Caleb Williams and USC deserved praise but watch out for quarterback Michael Penix Jr. sparked an offense that averaged 515 yards a game and proved to be too much for the Longhorns. Receivers McMillan and Rome Odunze return and there are answers on defense as well. The Huskies and Trojans have played just once in the past six seasons so circle Nov. 4 on your calendars. That matchup in Los Angeles will be a doozy.

Florida State Oklahoma

Washington Texas

Jordan TRAVIS

Michael PENIX JR.

You know how the memories of some bowl games last for years? We offer Example A, 2002 vintage. USC, sparked by Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams’ five TD passes, was cruising with a 45-30 lead and a little over four minutes remaining over Tulane in last year’s Cotton Bowl. Then lightning struck, at least three times. The Green Wave (12-2) scored 16 points in the final 4:07 with the game-winning TD pass coming after they grabbed the ball back post a safety. How unlikely was that comeback? Over the previous five seasons teams had won once in 1,693 games when trailing by 15 or more points with five minutes to play.

The victory was Tulane’s biggest in a bowl since the 1935 Sugar Bowl and capped the biggest single-season turnaround (2-10 to 12-2) in college football history. With QB Michael Pratt and a stout defense returning, pencil Willie Fritz’s team in as the favorites to repeat in The American.

TULANE

Tulane USC

Penn State Utah

Any time a school can win just its second Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential it’s memorable. James Franklin is hoping to use the win as a springboard to even greater victories. The Nittany Lions received an 87-yard touchdown run from Nicholas Singleton and the longest TC reception in Rose Bowl history — 88-yards by KeAndre Lambert-Smith — to dominate the second half and beat the Utes. Singleton, Smith and quarterback Drew Allar are all sophomore who own great promise.

Partnership Spotlight

REIMAGINING IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES FOR SPORTS FANS AND BETTORS

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 Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa.

In Wake Forest’s 27-17 victory over Missouri in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl on December 23, the Demon Deacons and Tigers combined for 743 yards and three lead changes. Wake QB Sam Hartman tossed for 280 yards, three touchdowns and led the team to a second straight bowl game win. Missouri gained 127 yards on the ground, winning the running game. Hartman brought home the MVP for the second consecutive bowl game, following his outstanding performance against Rutgers in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in 2021. With five bowl victories under his belt — the most in school history — head coach Dave Clawson is now tied for the fifth-most postseason victories in ACC history.

LEARN MORE

PENN STATE

Nicholas SINGLETON

By the NUmbers

2022-23 Bowl Season

43 Experienced by:

Bowl Games

THE MOST IN ANY ONE SEASON

10K+ STUDENT-ATHLETES PARTICPATED

1.56M FANS IN ATTENDANCE

Progressive Bowl Challenge Cup

Final 2022-23 Standings

The Progressive Bowl Challenge Cup is awarded annually to the conference with the best winloss record during Bowl Season.

WINNER!

4-2 Record

The Mid American Conference came out on top this year with a 4-2 record. All-time, this is the MAC’s second claim to the cup since the Bowl Challenge Cup began in 2002 (2011-12, 2022-23).

Prepared by

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