With the 15th season of BCS bowl action just about ready to kickoff, Athlon reviewed the tapes of the four (now five) biggest bowl games in college football. Since 1998, teams have been fighting to land a spot in the BCS and here are those teams whose performances didn’t live up to the spotlight and prestige attached to the bowl they played in.
Two teams that opened the season against each other will meet up once more to close out their respective campaigns when Iowa State and Tulsa get together on New Year’s Eve in Memphis, Tenn. The Cyclones won the first meeting over the Golden Hurricane, 38-23 back in September, but they enter this game having dropped five of their last seven games.
The third annual bowl game at Yankee Stadium may technically be a matchup between the Big 12’s West Virginia Mountaineers and the Big East’s Syracuse Orange. But the reality is that this is a grudge match between former Big East rivals who first played in 1945 and have played every year since 1955.
From 1999 to 2009, Minnesota played in nine bowl games. But after two coaching changes and no postseason berths since, Jerry Kill has his Golden Gophers back in the postseason. The Big Ten program hasn’t won a postseason game, however, since a 2004 Music City Bowl victory over Alabama.
For the sixth time in the 20-year history of the bowl, and for the first time since 2008, the Alamo Bowl will feature two ranked teams. Mike Riley led Oregon State back to the postseason after a two-year bowl hiatus. This will be the 14th bowl game in Beavers history and Riley is responsible for seven of them. He is a sterling 5-1 in postseason play.
The bowl game in Tempe will be a last chance to build any sort of momentum for both Michigan State and TCU into 2013.
If you like offense, the Holiday Bowl is one of the postseason’s must-watch matchups. Baylor and UCLA each averaged over 35 points and 470 yards a game, so this game could be one of the highest-scoring contests of the bowl season
No college football head coaching search ever goes according to plan. However, anytime a job opens during or after the season, there’s a good idea of which candidates will be interested or the most likely targets. Despite having a general feel of where a particular program might go with its hire, there are times where a school makes a decision that blindsides or surprises everyone.