0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/31/2014
Before the 1978 Sugar Bowl, Bear Bryant had Woody Hayes try on his houndstooth hat (above). Nick Saban doesn’t wear houndstooth hats, and Urban Meyer doesn’t wear a white button-down shirt with a red tie and black pants. Yet, when Ohio State and Alabama meet on New Year’s Night in New Orleans, they’ll recall the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/30/2014
War is always a defeat for humanity, said Pope John Paul II. Karol Wojtyla, bless his heart, wasn’t a college football fan — if he had been, he would have realized that in at least one case, “war” was a blessing. It’s true that Steve Spurrier versus Bobby Bowden from 1990 through 2002 was extremely […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/29/2014
Two major storylines in college football converge this Thursday afternoon in Arlington, Texas. One is deeply rooted in the sport’s history, while the other is powerfully and centrally connected to the story of the 2014 season. Both are equally compelling, and that’s why the 2015 Cotton Bowl is easily the best of the non-playoff bowl […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/28/2014
The (December) 2014 Orange Bowl is notable because it marks Brent Musburger’s first-ever television call of the game. The Orange is the final major New Year’s bowl which can be added to the venerable broadcaster’s sprawling resume. That’s significant… and yet it pales in comparison to what the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Mississippi State […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
This has been a magnificent, resplendent, roaring rebound of a season for the Texas Christian Horned Frogs. Stuck in the muck at 4-8 in 2013, the Frogs faced plenty of questions — all of them legitimate — about their very ability to survive, let alone thrive, in the Big 12. Yes, TCU had endured a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
While the present moment is definitely a happy one for both the Arizona Wildcats and the Boise State Broncos, there’s usually an undercurrent of “what might have been” attached to many of our satisfactions in life. This is very much the case on the eve of the second 2014 Fiesta Bowl (since it is being […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/27/2014
The Cotton Bowl faded into relative obscurity over the past two decades, due to the death of the Southwest Conference and a reshuffling of the New Year’s Day bowl lineup. Beginning in the latter half of the 1990s and continuing for a number of years, the Cotton Bowl was moved to a late-morning kickoff for […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The Orange Bowl’s reputation and stature took at hit in the Bowl Championship Series era. Think of Louisville-Wake Forest in 2007 and Cincinnati-Virginia Tech in 2009 in terms of buzz. Consider 2010 Iowa-Georgia Tech and 2012 West Virginia-Clemson in terms of attendance. This was not the same kind of event it was in the early […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The annual renewal of what are now called the New Year’s Six bowls marks the perfect time to look back at these classic postseason events. The Fiesta Bowl doesn’t own the longevity of the other New Year’s Six bowls, but its most memorable games left quite an imprint on the college football history books and […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/24/2014
A personal opinion: Christmas Day should shelve the sports. No day during the year should be more reserved for quiet time and a respite from frantic commercial activity than Christmas Day. * end of personal opinion* With that having been said, football fans who are at least 35 years old almost certainly recall the days […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
He’s making a list. Checking it twice. Studying kickers and when he should ice. Santa Coach is coming… to town. * HO, HO, HO! MERRRRRRRRY BOWL SEASON! This isn’t about being naughty or nice, as you can see from the adjusted song lyrics above. This is about making some basic game management decisions as a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The story of any sporting event — the central measure of meaning found in one night’s athletic competition — is sometimes found in the how and the why of things. How did one team dominate the other? Why was one side able to establish leverage and seize opportunities? On other occasions, however, a given game’s […]
0 comments by Terry Johnson and Matt Zemek on 12/23/2014
Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo wanted to scratch an itch to become a head coach, and after Colorado State couldn’t land Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost, the Rams pursued Bobo, and he accepted the job. One SEC offensive coordinator, Jim McElwain, left Alabama to lead the Rams, and now another SEC offensive coordinator has made […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/22/2014
The first Miami Beach Bowl was a messy and poorly-coached but immensely entertaining game. Memphis and BYU put on a double-overtime show for a national audience… and no one’s going to remember that years from now. The main thing — possibly the only thing — casual fans will take away from this game is that […]
0 comments by TSS LOCKER
More vines will be posted on the brawl at the end of the Miami Beach Bowl, but here is the large-scale beginning of the fight, courtesy of Reddit College Football:
