One of the best stories of the early bowl season was the Akron Zips finding a way to defeat the Utah Aggies in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl for their first ever bowl victory, a feat that is actually a lot more impressive than it sounds given that Terry Bowden is their coach. Of course, one could also point out that the Zip have only been an FBS team since the mid-80s, and have only earned the right to play in a bowl game one other occasion in that time span. A Cubs-ian streak of futility this was not. The Zips were simply a bad FBS team for a very long time (they have seven winning seasons in the last 29 years).
The six other current FBS, non-Buckeye Ohio college football teams have a much longer tradition of bowl game lore, some of which stretches all the way back to the 1940s in things called the Refrigerator Bowl or the Salad Bowl through the present day to much more refined bowls such as the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl or the PapaJohns.com Bowl.
And while Ohio State fans are probably not one to be throwing stones in houses made up of bowl records (given that the Buckeyes are 21-24 all time), the other current FBS schools in the state of Ohio aren't exactly up to par themselves, with one major, hilarious exception that we'll get to later. In the meantime let's take a look at how current FBS Ohio schools have fared in bowl games historically, their best win, and their worst loss. Also let's dust off some goofy graphics while we're at it!
The Cincinnati Bearcats currently possess an 8-9 overall bowl record, with their most recent loss coming at the hands of the San Diego State Aztecs. They entered the game as the favorite by almost a field goal, and they managed to lose by five touchdowns. At least they got to play in Hawai'i.
BEST WIN
The Bearcats won the 2011 Liberty Bowl in what amounted for a home game for their opponent, the Vanderbilt Commodores. Vanderbilt is kind of crappy even when they're good, but it's still fun to put a win over an SEC opponent on your résumé, especially since...
WORST LOSS
...their worst (read: funniest) loss came a year before, in the 2010 Sugar Bowl, where an angry Florida team coached by the ghost of Urban Meyer put up 51 points on a completely hapless Cincinnati team that had been abandoned by head coach Brian Kelly just a few weeks before the game. It was the second BCS game Cincinnati had played in (they lost their first to Virginia Tech), and it remains the second because the Bearcats have yet to get their mojo back. And by mojo, I mean "inflated sense of self-importance that comes from the shock of being ranked as one of the top 15 teams in the country."
Bowling Green has been on a bit of a tear as of late, having played in four straight bowl games. They have also lost three out of those four games and overall stand at 5-8. So, you know... bad.
BEST WIN
BG won a really fun Las Vegas Bowl in 1992 against the Nevada Wolfpack, scoring the go-ahead touchdown on fourth down with less than 30 seconds to spare. Chris Ault was reportedly so despondent after the game that he retired a mere 20 years later.
WORST LOSS
A few days ago the Falcons lost to Georgia Southern by 31 points in the GoDaddy Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. I'm not sure that a more depressing string of words exists in the English language.
The aforementioned Akron Zips are still riding high on those dank Terry Bowden fumes, and hell, why not? They're 1-1 in bowl games now. Next stop, the College Football Playoff!
BEST WIN
Duh.
WORST LOSS
The Motor City Bowl is blessedly no longer A Thing (although it was in turn replaced by yet another Detroit bowl), but unfortunately fate decided that Akron still needed to lose to Memphis by a touchdown in the 2005 edition of that game. Sorry Akron, but maybe this is what you get for being a Midwestern school with a Kangaroo for a mascot.
Kent State has played in three bowl games. They have lost... wait for it... three bowl games. With that said, with games in 1954, 1972, and 2013, at least the Golden Flashes were kind enough to space out these games so that successive generations of Kent State fans have a bowl loss to round out their formative years.
BEST WIN
Son, I'm not sure how to break it to you, but...
WORST LOSS
It's pretty hard to beat a loss to the Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens in a 1954 Refrigerator Bowl grudge match in sunny Evansville, Indiana, for sheer futility and complete hopelessness. Once you've lost to a team called the Fightin' Blue Hens in something called the Refrigerator Bowl, it might be time to reconsider this whole "football" thing. And given that the Golden Flashes have eight winning seasons in the past 54 years, maybe they kind of have.
Miami Redhawks fans will tell you that they deserve to be the exception in this article. They are not. I am not swayed by a 7-3 bowl record that includes all of three games in the last 30ish years. Yes, they won two of those three, but you know what? Who cares? Beating Middle Tennessee State and a John L. Smith-coached Louisville team doesn't impress me much, especially since the latter win came about mostly because noted douchebag Ben Roethlisberger threw for a bajillion yards.
Point is, I'm a little bitter having grown up about 20 miles from the Oxford campus and angrily watch my local newspaper give more coverage to the Redhawks than the Buckeyes simply because of their best bowl wins, which came about a decade before I was born.
Speaking of which...
BEST WINS
Granted, they are some pretty good wins. In three consecutive years in the 1970s, Miami took out Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina in the Tangerine Bowl (now called the Citrus Bowl). None of those SEC opponents were all that good in the years that they played the Redhawks, but who cares? The 1973 game against Florida was probably especially fun given that the game was played in Gainesville and it was 25 degrees outside for some reason.
WORST LOSS
Losing to San Jose State by 30 in the 1986 California Bowl is a result much more befitting today's Redhawks.
As long as Frank Solich's Ohio Bobcats go to a bowl game every couple of years or so, it doesn't really matter that they're 2-7 all time in those games. A winning record and a sniff of respectability, and Solich can ride dirty down the streets of Athens for however long he feels like doing so.
BEST WIN
I'm going to say the 2011 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl where they beat Utah State by one point, mostly for the really funny synergy with the Zips.
WORST LOSS
Losing something called the "Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl" at any point, for any reason, is going to be your worst bowl loss of all time.
Guess what, nerds? The Toledo Rockets are 10-5 in bowl games, secretly being the most kickass (postseason-wise) of all current FBS Ohio schools not named Ohio State. I mean, yeah, they're bad bowl games. But they're winning them, dammit! And they're a whole hell of a lot more likable than Miami!
BEST WIN
Winning the 1969 Tangerine Bowl against Davidson may not seem like much of anything, but it was the first of three straight undefeated seasons for the Rockets. That's right: from 1969 through 1971, Toledo played in 35 games (including three Tangerine Bowls) and lost exactly zero of them. For their efforts they got essentially zero national recognition, but on the bright side about 20 years later Nick Saban was their head coach for a hot minute.
WORST LOSS
Wait, what!? DAMN YOU, UTAH STATE AGGIES IN THE FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL!
So far this bowl season Ohio FBS teams are a lackluster 2-3. This is a bad, but predictable result given the historical mediocrity that Ohio-based teams (including our beloved Buckeyes) have shown in the postseason.
But one of the great things about college football is that no one really cares what you did last decade, last year, or even last week. What matters is the present, and if the Buckeyes, Ohio's flagship public school in terms of both football and academics (boy, I love rubbing Miami's face in that), win in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day, all is forgiven. Ohio football remains cool and good.
Let's keep it that way.
