0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/31/2015
The Mississippi State Bulldogs finished a perfectly respectable season on Wednesday afternoon in Charlotte, winning the Belk Bowl and capturing nine victories in a rebuilding year. The Bulldogs lost their best running back and receiver from 2014, leaving star quarterback Dak Prescott with comparatively few resources this season. Even though MSU’s nine wins did not […]
TUSCALOOSA, AL – NOVEMBER 07: Derrick Henry #2 of the Alabama Crimson Tide rushes away from Jamal Adams #33 of the LSU Tigers in the second quarter at Bryant-Denny Stadium on November 7, 2015 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
0 comments by Ryan Palencer on 12/30/2015
As the only team making the College Football Playoff for the second straight season, Alabama is attempting to do what it couldn’t in its first go-around: advance to the national championship game. If the Crimson Tide are going to play on Jan. 11 in Glendale, they will need to excel in what they have done […]
0 comments by Yesh Ginsburg
Kirk Ferentz has been infamous among the college football pundit world for being an unfireable (I know, I know, I made up a word) coach. He parlayed success early in his coaching career into a buyout the university could not afford, and everyone knew it. His critics pointed out that since then, he produced nowhere […]
Recording studio microphone
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Tuesday at partner site Awful Announcing, I offered a list of 10 unsung #CollegeSportsTwitter stars worth following for 2016. I invited all of the honorees to answer two questions: 1) What is the biggest myth in college sports? 2) What is the most underreported story in college sports over the past 25 years? A few […]
ORLANDO, FL – DECEMBER 29: Johnny Jefferson #5 of the Baylor Bears carries while defended by Dominquie Green #26 and Des Lawrence #2 of the North Carolina Tar Heels during the first half of the Russell Athletic Bowl game at Orlando Citrus Bowl on December 29, 2015 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images)
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/29/2015
Frustrations can either linger or be expunged. One team knew what to do with its frustrations as 2015 came to a close. * The Baylor Bears went to Orlando, the site of DisneyWorld, on a business trip, not a pleasure cruise. Art Briles and his program felt the sting of a high-profile bowl setback each […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The California Golden Bears didn’t get everything they wanted this season, but they did make a bowl game, marking a modest but real step forward for the program. The man at the heart of this improvement project in Berkeley was Jared Goff. He dazzled in September, especially when he rang up 45 points on a […]
0 comments by Chris Abshire
It’s finally that time of the bowl season. We’ve pushed through some (admittedly compelling) bowls with 5-7 teams and the especially-middling major-conference teams, and now we get to the heavy hitters. This sea change unofficially hits at noon ET on Thursday, as Florida State and Houston kick off a strange set of New Year’s Six bowl […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
When the 2015 Iowa Hawkeyes take the field for the Rose Bowl game this Friday, they’ll certainly attempt to win for themselves, to achieve something in the present moment. Yet, as much as every competition is about the opponent and the opportunity in front of one’s nose, some games have a way of reaching more […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Notre Dame. Ohio State. Two longtime Midwestern powers. The Fiesta Bowl, located in the suburbs of Phoenix, could not ask for a better matchup, given that the desert metropolis is a magnet for residents of the Midwest, in much the same way that Florida cities attract New Yorkers and other residents of the urban Northeast. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Houston and Florida State will play in the 2015 Peach Bowl, a New Year’s Six game. The pairing feels odd in many ways, chiefly because Houston hasn’t played a bowl of this stature in 30 years. The fact that the Cougars reside in a lower-tier conference also makes the event feel smaller than it should. […]
EAST LANSING, MI – SEPTEMBER 18: The Michigan State Spartans fans celebrate the overtime victory against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Spartan Stadium on September 18, 2010 in East Lansing, Michigan. The Spartans defeated the Fighting Irish 34-31 in overtime. (Photo by Mark Cunningham/Getty Images)
0 comments by Bart D
Michigan State will defeat Alabama in football in the second CFB Playoff game on Dec. 31, 2015. That’s it. That’s the opening line. No jokes, entertaining lead-ins, or crazy statistics that you accept at face value because it’d be too tough to research it and make it up. The Spartans are underdogs, mostly because the […]
of the Michigan State Spartans against the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Big Ten Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium on December 5, 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
0 comments by Yesh Ginsburg
We have noticed a trend. It’s probably a meaningless confluence of circumstances. Sometimes trends are meaningful statistics, sometimes they are fun facts, and sometimes they are just huge coincidences. This is almost certainly the latter, but it is something to bear in mind as we look ahead to Michigan State’s playoff game against Alabama in […]
Record roasting do-everything quarterback for Navy, Keenan Reynolds, is one of the five that cannot be afforded to be lost to their teams.
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 12/28/2015
It is so easy to emphasize the negative in life, and this could have been the case for Keenan Reynolds and Navy heading into the Military Bowl on Monday afternoon against Pittsburgh. Navy did not win the American Athletic Conference’s West Division. It did not get to play in the first AAC Championship Game. It […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
As the North Carolina Tar Heels and Baylor Bears prepare to meet in the Russell Athletic Bowl — one of the more attractive matchups of the bowl season — it’s worth recalling a time when both schools stood tall. * The previous two seasons, Baylor won the Big 12 Conference, but North Carolina had not […]
0 comments by Yesh Ginsburg
Thanks to the wonders of television and a natural inability to sleep, I have been able to see an inordinate amount of college football this bowl season. I’m not complaining about it one bit. After watching almost the entirety of just about every bowl game (I might have missed a few plays here or there […]
