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The Boca Raton Bowl Begins With A Bang: NIU-Marshall Is Not A Typical Pre-Christmas Party

0 comments by on 12/22/2014

In the newly-expanded bowl lineup of 38 games, some of the four first-time bowls are what you’d expect in terms of the quality of matchup, especially since they’re all played before Christmas. It’s generally accepted that pre-Christmas bowls represent the undercard section of bowl season, with the matchups getting better after the final NFL Sunday of […]

5 Things We Learned From Day One Of The Bowl Season

0 comments by on 12/21/2014

The bowl season began with five games on Saturday. What’s worth retaining from these games? Here’s a short list. 5 – GAME MANAGEMENT, BOWL STYLE:  COACHES WHO TREATED BOWLS AS FUN EVENTS WERE REWARDED This is a topic we wrote about earlier in the week: Bowl games demand a different approach relative to the regular […]

The Miami Beach Bowl Is Not A Pleasure Trip For BYU Or Memphis

0 comments by on 12/19/2014

Miami is — along with New Orleans — one of the great winter party destinations for American football fans. The city has served as the longtime host of the venerable Orange Bowl game, and it has also hosted 10 Super Bowls. Miami is a city made for postseason football, so it might be easy to […]

Why We Love Bowl Games: Caution Can Be Checked At The Door

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The story of the last two New Mexico Bowls is the story of why bowl games are a (wait for it) Land of Enchantment as far as college football fans and pundits are concerned. Bowl games don’t always hit the sweet spot (see the 2011 Fight Hunger Bowl between 6-6 Illinois and 6-7 UCLA), but […]

Duke picked up a critical win at Georgia Tech last weekend. The Blue Devils probably didn’t expect Virginia to be an equally consequential contest the following weekend, but the other teams in the ACC Coastal didn’t expect Duke to represent such a key game last season. Duke is now finding out what it’s like to be on the other side of the tracks. Virginia-Duke will do a lot to shape the evolving ACC Coastal race.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: When Bowl Results Mean More For One Team Than Another

0 comments by on 12/17/2014

It’s not as though dozens of bowl teams won’t be motivated. Yes, you’ll get the occasional “sulking bowl team” such as USC in the 2012 Sun Bowl against Georgia Tech, but in most cases, the “motivation factor” manifests itself in the form of the underdog that really, really wants to prove a point or make […]

Bowl Season: How Important Is Each Game To Each Team?

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There are hundreds of different ways to approach bowl season — let’s at least take a few different views of this unique part of FBS college football, something which separates it from every other American team sport. No best-of-seven series, no bracketed tournaments. You can call bowls one-game exhibitions. You can call them one-game championships. […]

Conference Strength And The Bowl Games: Separating Fact From Fiction

0 comments by on 12/15/2014

Linking conference strength to bowl results is always a tenuous, risky thing to do — it can be done, but it requires great care and an awareness of limitations. The reasons for being cautious about touting — or downgrading — a conference based on bowl performance are obvious. They do, however, demand some care and […]

College Football Playoff: 5 Overlooked Storylines Heading Into The Semifinals

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You know what the main stories will be when the College Football Playoff arrives on Jan. 1: Can Mark Helfrich not get destroyed in the coaching matchup with Jimbo Fisher? Can Cardale Jones lead Ohio State’s offense with distinction? Can Oregon’s offense deal with an extended layoff, finding rhythm in a situation that is often […]

Marcus Mariota

Marcus Mariota Wins The Heisman: Sameness and Singularity Converge In A Special Season

0 comments by on 12/13/2014

There are many storylines attached to Marcus Mariota’s Heisman Trophy victory on Saturday night in New York. Dale Newton of Bloguin’s Oregon site, The Duck Stops Here, placed the event in a University of Oregon context. TSS contributor Ryan Palencer wrote about the meaning of the occasion for Mariota’s home state of Hawaii. The absence […]

The 2014 Heisman Race: Jameis Winston Won’t Be In New York, But He Still Owned The Stage, And That Raises Questions

0 comments by Bart Doan and Matt Zemek

In the final installment of the 2014 Bloguin Heisman Poll, TSS associate editor Bart Doan chose Jameis Winston as the winner on his ballot. It’s an against-the-grain choice… and this country was built on against-the-grain choices in places such as Boston Harbor and Valley Forge. (This sounds like something the late, great Beano Cook would […]

Bowl Season: 10 Teams That Received A Favorable Bowl Placement

0 comments by on 12/10/2014

Bowl games — as finished products — are the creations of a jumble of factors: politics, rules, television considerations, ticket sales, hotel reservations, and more. Some teams receive the kinds of placements that check all the boxes, while others get shut out. Which teams received the best bowl assignments in terms of either travel, opponent, […]

Bowl Season: 5 coaches with the most to prove in the bowls

0 comments by Bart Doan, Matt Zemek, and Ryan Palencer

Bowl season means so many different things to so many coaches. For some, it’s just a chance to get in extra practices and build a foundation for the following season, win or lose. For others, it’s an urgent occasion, a chance to salvage something previously unclaimed from September through November. For others, it’s a chance […]

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