2012-13 College Football Bowl Season Preview

Last year, I posted the bowl preview I always write for a friend. Since I wrote it again this year, I figured I’d post the new version. I tried to edit for a more general audience, but it may still be pitched a tad toward Michigan and the Big Ten in general.

As with last year, for each game, I list the date, the bowl’s name, the teams involved, a short description, and a rating. The ratings are on the following scale: DON’T BOTHER, CAN SEE, SHOULD SEE, MUST SEE.

Click through the fold if you’re so inclined…

12/15 – Gildan New Mexico Bowl – Nevada vs. Arizona
I expect a recurring theme of this bowl preview to be “why is this bowl game happening and what did we do to deserve this punishment?” That said, the whole thing really does kick off with a real humdinger. Two very good offenses (Arizona’s #7 and Nevada’s #11) vs. two very bad defenses (#120 and #88, respectively) means fireworks galore. It’s entirely possible that you will see no tackles in an entire game.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

12/15 – Famous Idaho Potato Bowl – Toledo vs. Utah State
Utah State is among the most underrated teams in college football. They went 10-2, won the last-ever WAC title, and scored a win over Utah and a couple of near-wins over Wisconsin and BYU. Both of these teams play solid offense, but Utah State also plays defense. I don’t expect this to be terribly close.
RATING: CAN SEE

12/20 – San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (blah) – BYU vs. San Diego State
General rule: Any game featuring nondescript teams is not watchable unless they also field world-class, point-a-minute passing games and no defense. This one fails because BYU fields an absolutely smothering, top-5 defense. We suffer through 6-3 games featuring Alabama because it builds character. We do not need to honor BYU’s request for same.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/21 – Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl – UCF vs. Ball State
No. If you need more than that, Ball State is probably the best team Clemson beat, and I’m told UCF is a team that exists. Two totally vanilla nine-win mid-major teams = celebrate my birthday instead.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/22 – R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl – East Carolina vs. Louisiana-Lafayette
Another one. I told you this was a seriously uninspiring bowl season. Neither of these two teams fields a defense, but that doesn’t mean they’re likely to score all that many points either. This guy is associated with one of the programs, if that helps.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/22 – Maaco Las Vegas Bowl – Washington vs. Boise State
It’s a depressing sign of the times when there’s a game featuring two teams you’ve heard of, one of whom is Boise State, and a half-hearted “maybe?” is the best I can muster. This is a mediocre Boise State team, and Washington is the most Jekyll-and-Hyde team of the year (beat Stanford, lost to Washington State). Offering a prediction here is genuinely difficult, as Washington exists in a state of quantum uncertainty, so you might just have to open the box. If your cat is dead, I’m sorry.
RATING: CAN SEE

12/24 – Sheraton Hawaii Bowl – Fresno State vs. SMU
June Jones returns to his old stomping grounds, which might be kind of a fun story. Less fun: SMU is (a) not good, and (b) traveling a lot of time zones to get here. Fresno State is (a) actually decent, and (b) not that far from home. Should be a Bulldog romp.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/26 – Little Caesars Pizza Bowl – Western Kentucky vs. Central Michigan
Good lord. Even the MAC teams fail to impress this year. Central Michigan is just plain bad at football. Willie Taggart has been building a nice program at Western Kentucky, and he has a new job already before the bowl game has even happened, but that’s really all I have to say. If I were still in Michigan, I’d go to this game with my friends. But we would mostly get drunk and not look at the field.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/27 – Military Bowl Presented by Northrop Grumman – San Jose State vs. Bowling Green
Another weird, underrated, 10-win WAC team versus a basically flavorless MAC team. Bowling Green’s most notable feature is their #7 (overall) defense, which is a completely baffling statistic given the conference in which they spend most of their time. Despite my general objection to the existence, name, and soul-crushingly DC nature of this bowl, I’m actually kind of intrigued. I’m offering a little bit of grade inflation here, merely because the overall quality is so low this year you may as well seize what you can.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

12/27 – Belk Bowl – Cincinnati vs. Duke
I was recently telling a friend that I am infinitely more excited for this game than I was for the absolutely horrendous matchup (Louisville vs. NC State) last year. Cincinnati’s coach has been stolen by Tennessee (and what a strange hire that was), but their quarterback is named Munchie Legaux, which is just the best thing. Duke, even after crashing and burning to 6-6 (in the ACC!), is mildly entertaining. Plus, it’s Duke. In a bowl game. You’ll be able to tell your grandkids you saw that.
RATING: CAN SEE

12/27 – Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl – Baylor vs. UCLA
Now we’re talking. Baylor’s offense and defense exist at opposite ends of the silly spectrum, while UCLA managed to hire a totally competent NFL retread AND keep a quarterback alive for an entire season. In addition to QB Brett Hundley, UCLA also fields a total beast of a running back in Jonathan Franklin. This is the first game of the bowl season that I will wholeheartedly endorse. The sheer insanity that might ensue here is why bowl season exists.
RATING: MUST SEE

12/28 – AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl – Ohio (Not That Ohio) vs. Louisiana-Monroe
I don’t understand the name of this bowl. According to the internet, AdvoCare makes, like, probiotics? That’s pretty weird! Anyway, this one makes me the saddest, because I thought this was Ohio(NTO)’s year to bust the BCS, especially after they beat Penn State. But they collapsed down the stretch and come into this one limping along after losing four of their last five. Now we have a crappy team that once beat Penn State against a crappy team that beat Arkansas (before we knew how little that meant) and lost to Auburn (before we knew how gruesomely awful Auburn is).
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/28 – Russell Athletic Bowl – Rutgers vs. Virginia Tech
I can offer a couple reasons you should watch this game, and neither of them have anything to do with the quality of the product on offer. The first is that the Russell Athletic Bowl has the best Twitter feed of all the bowls (fairly representative tweet: “We’re gonna take a chrome Rutgers helmet and that Va Tech pro combat jersey with the circuits on it and we’re gonna make ourselves a Cylon”). The second is that this might be the best chance the Big Ten has of winning a bowl game. I can also offer a couple reasons why that last sentence should make you sob uncontrollably.
RATING: CAN SEE

12/28 – Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas – Minnesota vs. Texas Tech
I would bet a fair amount of money that you didn’t have any idea Minnesota was going to a bowl game, regardless of how closely you follow college football. They are probably the least-descript bowl team of the entire season, and this year that’s really saying something. They went 2-6 in conference. In a woefully inept Big Ten. And are going to be in a bowl. Meanwhile, Texas Tech got off to a hot start before the wheels fell off. Like Ohio(NTO), they lost four of their last five (albeit to fairly competent competition), and finished in the FIFTY PERCENT of the Big 12 that went 7-5.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/29 – Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl – Rice vs. Air Force
Guh. No way. The only highlight here is Air Force’s usually-entertaining triple option craziness. On the other hand, this is two 6-6 mid-majors playing a bowl game in Fort Worth (aka Poor Man’s Dallas aka At Best a Third-or-Fourth Hand City Unfit for Human Residence). Avoid.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/29 – New Era Pinstripe Bowl – West Virginia vs. Syracuse
One of the multitude of 7-5 Big 12 teams in a game you didn’t watch the last ten years when it was happening for real. Still, West Virginia’s offense is usually entertaining, and I see no reason to believe Syracuse is remotely good enough to slow down Geno Smith and his array of freak wide receivers. These teams have identical records, although you might want to mentally adjust for strength of schedule and the fact that Syracuse lost to Minnesota. Fireworks possible, and Dana Holgorsen always comes recommended for hillbilly hijinx.
RATING: CAN SEE

12/29 – Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl – Navy vs. Arizona State
Look, I absolutely love the triple option. Hands down the most fun offense to watch in all of football. But this is a pretty mediocre version of Navy that got absolutely hammered by Notre Dame and Penn State. And Arizona State is as affect-less as its mercenary head coach. Watch if you like, but I will stand over your shoulder shouting “THAT’S WHY I DON’T LIKE FOOTBALL” the whole time.
RATING: CAN SEE (ONLY FOR X’S AND O’S)

12/29 – Valero Alamo Bowl – Texas vs. Oregon State
What’s this now? An actual game between ranked(ish) teams who acquitted themselves more or less well this year? If I had offered you a $1,000 bet in the preseason on which of these two teams would end up with the better record, higher ranking, and all-around better year, what kind of odds would you have needed to take Oregon State? Still, this is, like, actually a real matchup of teams who play a game that is recognizably football. In most years, this game would be a middle-of-the-road option for entertainment; this year it’s (comparatively speaking) like sex with a supermodel.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

12/29 – Buffalo Wilds Wings Bowl – TCU vs. Michigan State
On the other hand, you have this. One of the few matchups between teams you’ve heard of that does not benefit (in a relative sense) from being in this disaster of a bowl season. Michigan State is one of the most miserable teams in the entire country to watch. They are essentially King Midas, only with poop instead of gold. TCU is a mediocre team with a good defense. No one will score any points in this game, it will end in 15 overtimes when everyone just kills themselves, and you’ll wake up three days later under the coffee table.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/31 – Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl – NC State vs. Vanderbilt
It’s strangely appropriate that one of the real highlights of this season – Vanderbilt going 8-4 and getting to their sixth bowl (and first-ever back-to-back bowls) – is paired with an NC State team that I don’t think you could pay me enough money to say something interesting about. They did fire Tom O’Brien because his warm-milk approach to recruiting and coaching wasn’t quite working out for them, so there’s that. Still, on the theory that you want to have something to tell your grandkids about, you may as well watch Vandy do something Vandy almost never does.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

12/31 – Hyundai Sun Bowl – USC vs. Georgia Tech
Oof. Maybe I lied about TCU/MSU. In any other year, this would be insanely fun. USC’s scads of talent and swagger versus Georgia Tech’s nutty flexbone offense, Lane Kiffin’s precocious snottiness versus Paul Johnson’s angry surliness. Instead, you get the worst USC team in a decade and a Georgia Tech team that, at 6-7, needed a special dispensation from the NCAA even to get into a bowl game. If there’s an upside, it’s that I had USC WR Marqise Lee on my unofficial Heisman ballot. He is legitimately electrifying, and if he comes to play that could be worth tuning in for.
RATING: CAN SEE

12/31 – AutoZone Liberty Bowl – Iowa State vs. Tulsa
Two facts about this game: (1) Iowa State is one of the few Big 12 teams that didn’t go 7-5 (they went 6-6), and (2) you’ve already seen (for certain very liberal definitions of “seen”) this game (Iowa State won 38-23 in week 1). The only reason to play this game is to introduce controversy over who should get to keep whatever shitty trophy they’re playing for. I assume it has something to do with meth.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

12/31 – Chick-fil-A (nee Peach) Bowl – LSU vs. Clemson
Because we’re grading on a really steep curve this year, I’m not going to belabor the fact that Clemson’s best win is probably over 9-3 Ball State. Instead, let’s just bask in the glory of watching two top-15, 10-2 teams with wildly entertaining head coaches. Tajh Boyd is one of the few truly excellent quarterbacks in a year that has been surprisingly low on talent, and I can virtually guarantee that someone in this game will try to run a play with 13 men on the field. If you need something to keep you awake until the ball drop (and let’s face it, we’re getting old, and we do), this one should actually do that.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

1/1 – Taxslayer.com (lolwut) Gator Bowl – Mississippi State vs. Northwestern
If you don’t count the Scarlet Knights, this might be the Big Ten’s best shot at a bowl win. Mississippi State lost to every good team they played and beat every bad team (except Ole Miss). They are the epitome of average. Unfortunately for the Big Ten, a win here would require Northwestern to win a bowl game for the first time since 1948.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

1/1 – Heart of Dallas Bowl – Purdue vs. Oklahoma State
Ha. No. A good way to save yourself some inconvenience: (1) Draw a picture of a stick person with a big mustache. (2) Set it on fire.
RATING: HIDE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN

1/1 – Outback Bowl – South Carolina vs. Michigan
This is among the better possible matchups for Michigan. That’s probably not saying much. One of these teams is a top ten outfit that narrowly lost to LSU and absolutely laid the wood to Georgia. The other one defeated a single team with a pulse, and required a desperation heave/overtime combination to do so. South Carolina’s offense has been kind of miserable down the stretch with Marcus Lattimore injured, so it’s possible that Michigan’s Island of Misfit Toys defense might actually be able to contain them. I’m still not sure how Michigan scores any points against one of the scarier defenses from the SEC. I’m hoping for a low-scoring slugfest here, because if one team starts rolling off points it’s not at all likely that that team will be Michigan. Also, it goes without saying that this is your last chance to see Denard Robinson. I can’t imagine how dead you’d have to be inside to pass up an opportunity like that.
RATING: SHOULD SEE* (*Possibly inflated.)

1/1 – Capital One Bowl – Georgia vs. Nebraska
If you had asked me a couple weeks ago about a matchup between these teams, I would have asked how Georgia got into the Rose Bowl. I then would have said that it might be kind of an interesting game. Georgia had a lot of wins, although not that many great ones, and Nebraska seemed to be getting things together to close the season. Now, though, oof. Georgia played Alabama to the wire in the SEC championship, and Nebraska got utterly wrecked by a really atrocious Wisconsin team. I see no real hope for a competitive game here, but if you like offensive clinics, there is a strong probability that Georgia is going to nuke the Huskers.
RATING: CAN SEE

1/1 – Rose Bowl Game Presented by Vizio – Wisconsin vs. Stanford
If you like old fashioned football, watching two teams in the Rose Bowl lining up and running into each other over and over again has a lot to recommend it. On the other hand, Stanford may actually be the best smash-mouth team in the whole country (and I’m including Alabama), while Wisconsin is… not. I don’t know where the Badgers pulled those 70 points against Nebraska out of, but don’t expect a repeat. What this game has going for it is two of the classic you-should-probably-watch factors: telling your grandkids you saw Stanford in a Rose Bowl, and watching the last game in the career of Montee Ball, who is by any measure one of the all-time great Big Ten running backs.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

1/1 – Discover Orange Bowl – Northern Illinois vs. Florida State
The most controversial of all the bowl games. Northern Illinois “stole” a spot from Oklahoma (we’ll conveniently not mention that both Wisconsin and Louisville are ranked behind NIU). And so on. Things that are actually worth talking about: NIU is the first 1-loss mid-major in a BCS bowl, the first MAC team of any kind, and a team that scores a whole lot of points. Jordan Lynch actually broke Denard Robinson’s run/pass record this year. On paper, Florida State appears to be much better, but this is still Florida State we’re talking about. Watch this because (a) how amazing is it that NIU is in a BCS bowl?, and (b) how hilarious would it be if they won? (NB: Non-AQ teams are 4-1 all time against AQ teams in BCS bowls.)
RATING: MUST SEE

1/2 – Allstate Sugar Bowl – Louisville vs. Florida
This is what happens when you don’t have a playoff. Florida has cobbled together probably the best resume of any team in the country, en route to a date with a team that fell backward into a Big East title. The upside here is that New Orleans is among the most fun cities on the planet. This upside probably doesn’t do you much good.
RATING: CAN SEE

1/3 – Tostitos Fiesta Bowl – Oregon vs. Kansas State
The national championship game you actually wanted to see. Two teams that play pretty wildly different styles of football. Oregon plays football like that scene in every anime where the two guys run at each other and it takes one of them a few seconds to realize he’s been cut in half, whereas K-State plays football like someone beating someone else to death with a hammer. The culture clash here could not come more highly recommended, and two players who should have been Heisman finalists (KSU QB Collin Klein, who was, and UO RB Kenjon Barner, who wasn’t) should be plenty of reason to tune in.
RATING: MUST SEE

1/4 – AT&T Cotton Bowl – Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma
For all the bitching about NIU stealing Oklahoma’s bowl slot, this game should be totally excellent. Johnny Football you know already, unless you’ve been sleeping through this season, and you probably also know Landry Jones. What you may not know is that Landry Jones has thrown for like 16,000 yards in his career, which may be more yards than I’ve traveled in my whole life. These are two national powerhouses who very much like the shootout. Make some popcorn for this one, and maybe also wear sunglasses.
RATING: MUST SEE

1/5 – BBVA Compass Bowl – Pittsburgh vs. Ole Miss
The Compass Bowl is always sandwiched in here, always features Pitt, and is always just totally depressing. The first week of January is kind of a bleak hellscape as it is; I’m not sure why Pitt feels the need to rub that in.
RATING: DON’T BOTHER

1/6 – GoDaddy.com Bowl – Kent State vs. Arkansas State
A little amuse-bouche before the main event, and it could be a lot worse. Kent State lost a little luster in the MAC title game, but they still come in with an 11-2 record and the ability to score scads of points. Arkansas State under until-recently-head coach Gus Malzahn is also known to enjoy a little offensive gamesmanship. My recommendation for this game is probably a little too colored by what these teams achieved before they both lost their coaches, but you may be surprised at how much better this is than virtually every other game on the slate.
RATING: SHOULD SEE

1/7 – Discover BCS National Championship – Notre Dame vs. Alabama
You probably know most of what you need to know for this one. On paper, I don’t love Notre Dame’s chances here, as Alabama is a pretty complete team. Still, their defense is absolutely first-rate (I had Manti Te’o at the top of my fake Heisman ballot) and has kept them in every single game they’ve played. From a purely non-partisan standpoint, these are two excellent teams with about a million years of history between them and two of the absolute best coaches in the game. Unless things get out of hand fast, this may be the best BCS title game since Texas/USC in 2005.
RATING: MUST SEE