The first slate of postseason games came and went with little fanfare. We crowned Division II and Division III champions. The bowl games, however, were a little light on intrigue. The Camellia Bowl and New Mexico Bowl were both high in spectator value but the teams involved (e.g. Marshall, Middle Tennessee) are unlikely to excite.
The games start increasing in intrigue this week. It'll start tomorrow with Lane Kiffin's Owls taking on Terry Bowden's Zips. There a lot of MAC teams playing their bowl games this week, which should interest the subset of Ohio State fans who follow the conference. The Armed Forces Bowl will feature two of the best rushing attacks this season.
The week concludes with the Hawai'i Bowl on Sunday, your indicator that Christmas is around the corner.
Here's your viewing guide for the week.
Tuesday
Akron vs. FAU [Boca Raton Bowl] (ESPN, 7 p.m.). The Boca Raton Bowl is a de facto home game for FAU since this game will be played in its home stadium. In fact, this bowl game in conspicuous on ESPN's bowl schedule for being listed as an "at" and not a "vs."
The head coaches in this contest should pique some readers. Terry Bowden was a successful, if problematic, head coach for Auburn from 1993 to 1998. His dismissal following a slew of off-the-field problems led to an exile from the coaching ranks for more 10 years. He re-emerged at Division II North Alabama, coaching the program for a successful three years before joining the MAC ranks in 2012. That he's taken Akron to an eight-win season in 2015 and a MAC East division title this year is a minor miracle. The Zips were moribund before he arrived.
#nofilter #wokeuplikethis #blessed (Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)
Meanwhile, FAU has Lane Kiffin at the helm. The former head coach at Tennessee, USC, and the Oakland Raiders spent his own time in the wilderness, using Nick Saban's prestige in Alabama as a mean to another shot at the head-coaching ranks. His Owls started 1-3. Thereafter? FAU has won nine-straight, including a 24-point beatdown of the Mean Green in the Conference USA Football Championship.
Incidentally, FAU hosted that game as well and will host the MAC runner-ups as 23-point favorites.
Wednesday
Louisiana Tech vs. SMU [Frisco Bowl] (ESPN, 8 p.m.). This is the first-ever Frisco Bowl, because apparently a Frisco Bowl was needed and, if it weren't needed, it wouldn't exist. QED.
This was previously the Miami Beach Bowl before the American Athletic Conference sold it to ESPN Events this April. ESPN Events relocated the game to Frisco, Texas. It also secured sponsorship from DXL, a chain that specializes in extra-large clothing, because at this point this bowl game seems like a parody of bowl games.
Skip Holtz' Bulldogs are 6-6 and five-point underdogs to SMU. However, SMU just lost its head coach to Arkansas. Sonny Dykes, the former California coach who will replace Chad Morris at SMU, will actually coach this game as well. He served as an offensive analyst at TCU a year after leaving Berkeley.
Thursday
Temple vs. Florida International [Gasparilla Bowl] (ESPN, 8 p.m.). This is the Gasparilla Bowl in what might be the consensus-worst venue for the college football post-season: Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
The history of this bowl's sponsorship might be my favorite thing about the contest. It first appeared as the magicJack Bowl, the first such bowl game to be named after a computer peripheral that connects a USB output to an RJ-11 output. Thereafter, sponsorship shifted to Beef O'Brady's, possibly the greasiest chain restaurant in the country. It became the "Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl" in 2014 because sponsorship by a cryptocurrency bubble waiting to blow up in every sucker's face was the only logical end game here.
That was until this year. It is now the "Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl." There's a lot to like in this name. "Gasparilla" references a "pirate festival" in Tampa that celebrates a patently apocryphal legend of José Gaspar (i.e. "Gasparilla"), a Spanish pirate that never existed who supposedly patrolled Southwest Florida in the early 19th century despite not existing and being a total fabrication of our collective imagination.
Bad Boy Mowers, intuitively, makes mowers, but are sadly not connected to Puff Daddy or his record label. This is a missed opportunity. However, almost no one who watches this game is going to know that and will probably like their version of reality better.
Vegas likes 6-6 Temple over 8-4 Florida International by a full touchdown.
Friday
UAB vs. Ohio [Bahamas Bowl] (ESPN, 12:30 p.m.). How's this for perverse incentives: the MAC champion (Toledo) goes to the Camellia Bowl in Alabama while the second-best team in the MAC (Ohio) goes to the Bahamas. Who wants to win the MAC with those incentives?
Ohio didn't even participate in the MAC Championship Game because of a tie-breaking loss to an objectively worse Akron team but this is a decent consolation prize. There's some pressure here to do well. Frank Solich is set for life as Ohio's head coach but his lack of success in the post-season stands out. Solich has four division titles but no conference championships. Further, Ohio's bowl record is 2-6 under his tutelage.
UAB is happy to be back and happy to be here after its reinstatement to college football. (Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports)
Across the field, it's a miracle UAB is even here. The University of Alabama System voted to kill the program in early 2015. For those unaware how higher education works in the Deep South, do know Southern higher education generally works on a model that privileges the flagship institution and views *any* overlap with it as inefficiency or, worse yet, a "threat." It's why you have such high variance in educational missions between places like Ole Miss and Mississippi State, Alabama and Auburn, and South Carolina and Clemson. From the football side of things, the UA System effectively viewed UAB football as a threat to Alabama football at the margins and fumbled for reasons to kill it.
The outcry led to that being a temporary decision. UAB was reinstated to football in 2017 and even achieved an 8-4 record and a nice postseason landing in the Bahamas. Not bad.
Ohio is a big (-7.5) favorite this game.
Central Michigan vs. Wyoming [Potato Bowl] (ESPN, 4 p.m.). 8-4 Central Michigan takes on 7-5 Wyoming on Boise State's blue turf.
This season was a setback for Wyoming, which turned some heads last year in beating Boise State and blocking the Broncos from competing for the Mountain West championship. That win over Boise State cost the Broncos (and effectively the Mountain West Conference) a chance at the Group of Five invite to the New Year's Six.
Wyoming fell short of preseason hopes this year, finishing with a 7-5 record punctuated with two losses to Fresno State and San Jose State to end the season.
Central Michigan is still a competitive MAC squad. However, it's not the conference heavyweight it was when Brian Kelly and Butch Jones ran the program. Still, its 8-4 record is No. 2 in the MAC West behind conference champion Toledo. Importantly, Central Michigan is riding a five-game winning streak after a stretch in which it lost four of five games.
Wyoming (-1) is a slight favorite on blue turf closer to its Wyoming home.
Saturday
Texas Tech vs. South Florida [Birmingham Bowl] (ESPN, 12 p.m.). Texas Tech had a stretch of the season in which it lost four-straight games and five of six. It's any wonder the Red Raiders are after eking out a 6-6 record with a 27-23 win at Texas.
South Florida, by contrast, is a much more polished team. The Bulls started the season 7-0 and were a poised for a battle of unbeatens with UCF to decide The American's East division. However, it lost at home to Houston before dropping a 49-42 decision at UCF in what was one of the most thrilling games of the entire college football season.
Notwithstanding the disparity in records, USF is only a two-point favorite.
San Diego State vs. Army [Armed Forces Bowl] (ESPN, 3:30 p.m.). Army is one of the more intriguing stories at the margins of college football. It broke a 15-year losing-streak to Navy last year. This year, it won again and secured its first Commander-in-Chief's Trophy since 1996.
Basically, Army is playing its best football since 20 years ago.
San Diego State will be an entirely different challenge than what Army typically sees. The Aztecs have one of the nation's premier rushing threats. Rashaad Penny's 2027 rushing yards and 168.92 rushing yards per game are best in the country.
This should be a fun matchup if you like ground attacks. Vegas likes the Aztecs by a touchdown.
Appalachian State vs. Toledo [Dollar General Bowl] (ESPN, 7 p.m.). Again, perverse incentives. The best team in the MAC goes to Mobile, Alabama to play in the Dollar General Bowl. The second-best team in the MAC goes to the Bahamas. I know which of the two destinations piques my interest more.
Toledo is a solid football team and great by Group of Five standards. The Rockets have just two losses on the season. It was competitive in the Miami game before losing 52-30. The Ohio loss was a bit more deflating, but it did not preclude the Rockets from winning their first conference championship since 2004.
They'll see a familiar foe in Appalachian State. The two met last year in the Camellia Bowl in the same state. Appalachian State won 31-28.
Vegas likes the Rockets to even the score. Toledo is an eight-point favorite.
Sunday
Fresno State vs. Houston [Hawai'i Bowl] (ESPN, 8:30 p.m.). The Hawai'i Bowl is a Christmas Eve tradition. This one will feature the Mountain West runners-up taking on the No. 2 team in the American Athletic Conference's West division.
Fresno State hasn't been too hot since Pat Hill left the program but Jeff Tedford has done wonders with the Bulldogs in his first year. The former California coach has guided Fresno State to a 9-4 record and, as Ohio State fans may appreciate, is responsible for being Alabama's best win on the season. The Crimson Tide posted a 41-10 win over Fresno State in Week 2.
Houston is 7-4 and probably wishing Tom Herman was still around. Major Applewhite did all right in his first year with the program but Houston was the fourth-best team in the league this year. A few of those losses were competitive, including a three-point home loss to Texas Tech and a three-point loss to division champion Memphis.
However, I can't explain that Tulsa loss. Tulsa beat Houston 45-17 this season. It was one of Tulsa's two wins the entire year.
It is a little surprising that Houston is a 2.5-point favorite in the Hawai'i Bowl. I like Fresno State the more I look over this matchup.
