Kickoff: Bowl Season Official Newsletter – December 2020

BOWL SEASON MATCHUPS A Little Bit of Everything

By KEVIN M c NAMARA

Bowl Season has arrived. The most unpredictable regular season in college football history has ended. Challenges posed by the pandemic have left thousands of players, many teams and 16 bowl games on the sidelines but the 56 fortunate teams that will compete in 28 bowl games can’t wait to turn the page and enjoy postseason competition.

“I had the great fortune a long time ago to get to play in that bowl game as a player,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said in hearing that his team would play in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl against unbeaten Cincinnati. “When we played in it, it wasn’t nearly as prestigious as it is now. I know our guys are excited to get another time to play. Our opportunity to play another game against a top-10 opponent fires us up.”

Smart’s sentiments are echoed throughout college football. The bowls have created some fantastic matchups. After being robbed of so many

traditional, rivalry games and virtually all interconference contests, the bowls will create a window to see just which conference appears best in 2020. We will leave the College Football Playoff matchups between Alabama-Notre Dame (Rose Bowl) and ClemsonOhio State (Allstate Sugar Bowl) to another day. Here is a look at the many intriguing games on tap in Bowl Season: (all times Eastern):

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

Nevada (6-2) vs. Tulane (6-5)

Nevada started 5-0 but lost to bowl teams Hawaii and unbeaten San Jose State down the stretch. Tulane began the season 2-4 but rallied into Bowl Season by winning four of its last five and will hope for a third consecutive bowl victory.

DEC. 22 3:30pm | ESPN

“Our opportunity to play another game against a top-10 opponent fires us up.

”

– KIRBY SMART Georgia Buldogs Head Coach

BOWL SEASON MATCHUPS

RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl

BYU (10-1) vs. UCF (6-3)

BYU is only a narrow loss to Coastal Carolina away from an unbeaten season and shot at a New Year’s Day bowl. Now get ready for a shootout. The Cougars average 43 points per game, topped only by five teams. Central Florida (44.3) is one of them.

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl

Georgia Southern (7-5) vs. Louisiana Tech (5-4)

Louisiana Tech has won six consecutive bowl games and face an Eagles team that has lost three of its last four contests. Bulldog quarterback Luke Anthony (16 TD’s to only 5 interceptions) is dangerous.

Montgomery Bowl

Florida Atlantic (5-3) vs. Memphis (7-3)

READY TO GO: Memphis won’t be a pushover in the Montgomery Bowl, having won seven games in 2020.

DEC. 23

7pm | ESPN

Conference USA has a whopping seven bowl teams. The American Athletic Conference has six. Something’s got to give in this matchup between the leagues.

New Mexico Bowl

Hawaii (4-4) vs. Houston (3-4)

Thanks to their friends at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Tex., the New Mexico Bowl is up and running. Ah, 2020.

DEC. 24

3:30pm | ESPN

Hawaii always seems to be bowling while welcoming a foe to the Hawaiian Islands. Will Houston have some rust? The Cougars have played just once since Nov. 14 due to assorted COVID issues.

Camellia Bowl

Buffalo (5-1) vs. Marshall (7-2)

WELCOMED GUESTS:: Hawaii usually is the host during Bowl Season. This year they’re coming to North Texas to play in the New Mexico Bowl vs. Houston.

SERVPRO First Responder Bowl

Louisiana (9-1) vs. UTSA (7-4)

DEC. 25

2:30pm | ESPN

It’s Christmas and you love football so you’ll love the action in Montgomery, Ala. Marshall was riding high at 7-0 before losing to Rice and then to AlabamaBirmingham in the C-USA championship game.

DEC. 26

3:30pm | ABC

The Ragin’ Cajuns are a team you need to see. They beat Iowa State (31-14) way back in September and are only a narrow loss to Coastal Carolina (30-27) from perfection.

BOWL SEASON MATCHUPS

LendingTree Bowl

Georgia State (5-4) vs. Western Kentucky (5-6)

DEC. 26

3:30pm | ESPN

This game at historic Ladd-Peebles Stadium features two teams that long to achieve a winning season. Western Kentucky is riding a three-game win streak into Bowl Season.

SHOWING WHAT THEY GOT:

Coastal Carolina earned an entertaining 22-17 win over BYU on Dec. 5, a game that came together just a few days before kickoff.

Cure Bowl

Coastal Carolina (11-0) vs. Liberty (9-1)

You’d have to tune into a College Football Playoff game to find teams with fewer losses. The Chanticleers are playing for perfection against a Liberty whose only blemish was a 15-14 loss to North Carolina State.

DEC. 26 7:30pm | ESPN

Cheez-It Bowl

Miami (8-2) vs. Oklahoma State (7-3)

DEC. 29

5:30pm | ESPN

This is a battle between two teams that appeared headed for conference title games just a few weeks ago. The Hurricanes still don’t know what happened in a 62-26 loss to North Carolina, while the Cowboys hope to wipe away the bad taste of close losses to Oklahoma and TCU.

Valero Alamo Bowl

Texas (6-3) vs. Colorado (4-1)

HIGH FLYING CANES: D’Eriq King has injected excitement into the Miami Hurricane offense.

Duke's Mayo Bowl

Wake Forest (4-4) vs. Wisconsin (3-3)

DEC. 29

9pm | ESPN

If bowl game scripts were written in Hollywood, this would be the perfect career exit for Longhorn quarterback Sam Ehlinger. The Austin native has starred (93 passing TD’s, 33 rushing) for his hometown school and can go out with a win in San Antonio. The Buffaloes own other ideas.

The Badgers owned national title aspirations this season but few programs were more ravaged by COVID-19. Wake was a perfect 4-0 in October but hasn’t won since Halloween.

DEC. 30 Noon | ESPN

BOWL SEASON MATCHUPS

TransPerfect Music City Bowl Iowa (6-2) vs. Missouri (5-5)

Beginning with this contest in Nashville, SEC fans can see 10 of their teams play over the next four days. Iowa is out to show that the Big 10’s abbreviated schedule has still produced powerhouse teams.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic Florida (8-3) vs. Oklahoma (8-2)

Expect a shootout in Arlington as neither team has scored fewer than 27 points this season. The Sooners just won a sixth straight Big 12 championship in the same stadium, while the Gators hope to relive the joy of their last meeting with Oklahoma. That would be a 24-14 win in the 2008 BCS championship game for the program’s last national title.

FINISHING STRONG: Tulsa will close out its impressive season with a match up with SEC opponent Mississippi State.

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl Tulsa (6-2) vs. Mississippi State (3-7)

This is a great test case for the strength of the American. Tulsa has enjoyed an excellent season and just lost in the conference championship game to unbeaten Cincinnati, 27-24. Mississippi State has struggled under first-year coach Mike Leach and will look to throw the ball against Tulsa’s strong defense.

Arizona Bowl

San Jose State (7-0) vs. Ball State (6-1)

Spartans quarterback

DEC. 31

2pm | CBS

Nick Starkel spent his first three seasons at Texas A&M and Arkansas but found perfection in San Jose. Starkel led San Jose to its firstever win over Boise State in the Mountain West title game, breaking Derek Carr’s passing record with 453 yards and three TD’s.

AutoZone Liberty Bowl

West Virginia (5-4) vs. Army (9-2)

FIRST THINGS FIRST: Nick Starkel led San Jose State to an undefeated season (7-0) and its first Mountain West title.

Mercari Texas Bowl

Arkansas (3-7) vs. TCU (6-4)

DEC. 31

4pm | ESPN

Let’s hand it to the Mountaineers! It didn’t look like a very good Army team would find a Bowl Season dance partner but this matchup looks like a good one in Memphis. WVU was unbeaten at home but 0-4 on the road this season. The Cadets are looking for a fifth straight bowl victory.

DEC. 31

8 pm | ESPN

These old rivals from the Southwest Conference days get a chance to wake up the memories in Houston. TCU has won five of its last six games and quarterback Max Duggan will throw the ball all over the field.

BOWL SEASON MATCHUPS

WORTHY FOE: Cincinnati and its high-powered offense will take on Georgia’s vaunted defense in Atlanta.

Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl

Cincinnati (9-0) vs. Georgia (7-2)

This is the annual putup-or-shut-up game. The Bearcats were a legitimate contender for the CFP. Can they prove themselves vs. a Georgia team that only lost to Alabama and Florida?

Vrbo Citrus Bowl

Auburn (6-4) vs. Northwestern (6-2)

This game looks good on paper but how will it translate to the field?

Auburn has looked good at times but how will they fare with an interim head coach? Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald is one of the rising stars in the sport.

TaxSlayer Gator Bowl

NC State (8-3) vs. Kentucky (4-6)

The Wolfpack rallied into Bowl Season with four straight victories. The defense has allowed just 19.5 points over that stretch. This may not bode well for a Kentucky team that averaged 21.7 points in the SEC.

Outback Bowl

Indiana (6-1) vs. Ole Miss (4-5)

The Hoosiers were a close loss to Ohio State away from a dream season but now they face Lane Kiffin’s Rebels who started their season 1-4. This appears to be a mismatch but don’t count out battletested Ole Miss.

PlayStation Fiesta Bowl

Oregon (4-2) vs. Iowa State (8-3)

Oregon’s path to the PAC12 title game — and win over Southern Cal — is nothing short of a shocker. But the Ducks aren’t complaining. Iowa State was as good as anyone in the Big 12 all season. After beating Oklahoma early in the season, the Cyclones were edged in the conference title game by the Sooners, 27-21. Quarterback Brock Purdy and running back Breece Hall are a powerful duo.

Capital One Orange Bowl

North Carolina (8-3) vs. Texas A&M (8-1)

FARMERS FIGHT: Texas A&M’s Isaiah Spiller, Jalen Wydermyer and Hez Jones are just a few of the weapons that head coach Jimbo Fisher has at his disposal.

The Aggies finished fifth in the CFP rankings and are out to prove that they can beat anybody. The Tar Heels hung 62 points on the scoreboard in their other visit to Hard Rock Stadium this season. A&M is the first one-loss SEC team not to make the playoffs.

THE PLAYER EXPERIENCE

Bowl Season Memories for a Lifetime

By KEVIN M c NAMARA

You would think that as Charlie Ward geared up for a shot at the national championship in the 1993 Orange Bowl, the Florida State duel sport star would’ve been overflowing with excitement.

The same would go for Doug Flutie, the Boston College hero who catapulted to mythical status with the famed Miracle in Miami and a few weeks later prepared to end his career in the 1984 Cotton Bowl.

Well, we all would be wrong.

Both Ward and Flutie owned heavy Bowl Season experience. That meant memories of once-ina-lifetime trips with their teammates, pie and steak eating contests, visits to Disney World and Graceland.

And, of course, classic games.

Yet by the time the two quarterbacks had smiled with their Heisman Trophies, getting through the final game of their careers became more of a chore than a thrill.

“My senior year was definitely different than the year before. My life was so different,” Ward said. “From winning the Heisman and having to go all

these different places. Walking through kitchens and back doors and avoiding our fans, it’s just something I wasn’t accustomed to.”

Flutie knows the feeling. He said he enjoyed trips to the Tangerine and Liberty Bowls as an underclassman more than his high-wire Heisman season.

“Senior year there was the Heisman and all sorts of things going on,” Flutie said, “so there was a lot more pressure on me. My junior year felt like a vacation. We were still too dumb and naïve and we were just playing. The Cotton Bowl was a little more serious and it was difficult to enjoy it as much.”

Ward and Flutie actually share many similar Bowl

Season memories but, surprisingly, the excitement of just making a bowl game lingers in their memories just as much as their shining glory.

Together they traveled to eight bowls, Ward to five and Flutie three. They fondly recall the moments spent with teammates, the parades, the big-name opponents. Everything that the bowl experience delivers.

“I remember all the bowls, and I went to five of ’em. We won them all,” said Ward. “Sometimes I didn’t play and twice I was the starting quarterback so I think I saw a bit of everything in my career. We played Nebraska three times and beat them three times. It was a great experience.”

Ward matured from a shy freshman buried on Bobby Bowden’s depth chart on a Fiesta Bowl team to a hero who helped deliver the Seminoles’ first national championship. He doubled as a star guard on three NCAA Tournament basketball teams and in 1993 won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete.

“That first trip to Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl I was just happy to go,” Ward said. “I had never been that far away from home in my life. I remember we had a pie-eating contest and a lineman won. The linemen always win the eating contests.”

After a redshirt season, Ward began flashing the basketball skills that would one day lead him to an 11-year NBA career. That made for a two-sport tango that is non-existent in today’s college sports world.

“I went to the Cotton Bowl in 1991 when we played Texas A&M but I was going back-and-forth with the basketball team at the time,” Ward said. “I don’t think Coach Bowden saw me as anything more than the backup to the backup at quarterback.”

That changed the following season. Ward won the starting quarterback job and led FSU to an 11-1 record and a 27-14 win over Nebraska in the Orange

Bowl. Then, as a senior, Ward captured the Heisman and the Seminoles beat Nebraska again, this time in an 18-16 thriller.

Asked what he remembers most about the five bowl trips, Ward says he welcomed `the opportunity to keep practicing and getting better, more when I wasn’t playing than when I was starting.’

And then there was an unexpected surprise. “I just enjoyed getting the cash from the bowl travel,” he said with a laugh. “I was very frugal. The university fed us every meal so if we were going to spend any money it would be on something outside in the city and I wasn’t doing that. So I would come home with a lot of money. Between the travel per diem and the bowl per diem each day, it was good money.”

“I remember all the bowls, and I went to five of ’em. We won them all.”

– CHARLIE WARD

Flutie’s experience was different than Ward’s. BC never played for a national championship but the weight of his school — if not all of New England — sat squarely on his shoulders for three years. As a sophomore Flutie helped BC to its first bowl game in 40 years so “all the alumni and fans hadn’t been to a bowl game in forever and everyone jumped on board.”

When the Eagles landed in Orlando for the 1982 Tangerine Bowl, the matchup with Auburn and star running back Bo Jackson wasn’t yet priority number one.

“Jack Bicknell was our coach and his attitude was that the bowls were a reward for the kids,” Flutie said. “Yes, we want to win and prepare hard but we want to enjoy ourselves. We went to International Drive and the Magic Kingdom where I recall they had a beefeating contest. It was team against team and then individuals and we had a guy, Pat Cooney, who ate over nine pounds of meat. That team-building stuff was great.”

After losing to Auburn in a 33-26 shootout, the Eagles were back in the mix in Flutie’s junior season. In fact he feels that was his best team, even though the group fell short and was sent to the Liberty Bowl to face Notre Dame.

Every college football fan has seen Flutie’s remarkable, last-second, 48-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan for the winning TD in a 47-45 thriller. The pass literally changed Flutie’s life, setting off a crazy next month. A week later the Eagles beat Holy Cross and Flutie was whisked away to a private plane bound for New Jersey. A helicopter took him into Manhattan and he arrived at the Downtown Athletic Club just a half hour before accepting the Heisman.

“My whole senior year the attention kept building and it was wearing on me. It was crazy,” Flutie said. “There were dinners and interviews so by the time we got to the Cotton Bowl I was worn out. I just wanted to play football.”

The Eagles beat Houston, 45-28, giving the school its first bowl victory in 42 years. Flutie says the memories of those three bowl trips have lasted a lifetime.

“For me, at that age, the bowl weeks were the best vacations I had ever been on,” he said. “I’d tell players today to enjoy your bowl trip, enjoy the environment. Take in the culture of the city, get out and meet people. Kids today talk about the pros and sitting out their bowl games. I finished third in the Heisman my junior year. I wouldn’t have given up my senior year for anything in the world. I wouldn’t have given up those bowl trips for anything in the world.”

Ward’s final bowl memory is one that rings true in the hearts of every Florida State fan. Nebraska put up a stiff fight in the ’93 Orange Bowl and FSU didn’t pull ahead until Scott Bentley kicked his fourth field goal of the game with just 21 seconds on the clock.

“I remember it was so cold that the Mississippi River froze,” Flutie said. “We went to Graceland and Beale Street but we focused on the game more and were disappointed we lost (19-18).”

Flutie’s senior season was downright mythical. The Eagles won at Alabama before losing heartbreakers to West Virginia and Penn State but his passing numbers were eye-popping. That led to a showdown at Miami, which had its own star QB in Bernie Kosar. The game was billed as a chance for the winner to secure a Sugar Bowl berth but a week before, BC officials chose to lock in a New Year’s Day game in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl.

A celebration penalty helped spark some hope for the Cornhuskers and Tommie Frazier mounted a final drive. With just one second on the clock Nebraska’s kicker lined up a potential winning 45yard kick. Ward kneeled alongside his teammates as the kick sailed wide left and preserved an 18-16 win for the Seminoles.

“I was hoping that he’d miss,” Ward said, “but as I tell the kids that I coach, ‘when you’ve done all that you can do and you’ve given your team your all, you can’t control the outcome.’ I’m grateful that they missed it because we gave Florida State its first national championship. Florida State has had plenty of great teams but we were the one fortunate enough to break the ice.”

“My whole senior year the attention kept building and it was wearing on me. It was crazy.”

– DOUG FLUTIE