Curator & Coach - Bowl Week

For Bowl Week we pick one great bowl game to watch and also break down the semifinals.

Curator Sam Burnham

Cotton Bowl - Memphis vs Penn State
This may be the most under appreciated game if the bowl season. Penn State comes in as the favorite and perhaps a bit disappointed at how the season played out after an 8-0 start. You gotta still respect this team as those two losses came to Ohio State and Minnesota, not too shabby. Penn State is a good football team but how could anyone outside the Keystone State not pull for Memphis? A 12-1 season, their first outright conference title in 50 years, and a big boy bowl bid. They’ve been in a bowl for the last six seasons but this is their first foray into the big time. They’ve accomplished a lot this season and they’re still being dismissed.

But there’s more. Their head coach has left for Tallahassee, a move few could blame him for. But his team now looks to a former assistant. This is one of the best bowl season story formulas out there. You can make blockbuster movies with this formula. The team rallies around the interim, they play an unsuspecting giant who’d rather be in the playoff, or at least Pasadena, and everything falls into place. The underdog plays their best game of the year while the favorite plays flat and sloppy. The underdog shocks the world. Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger. Tigers over Lions.

Fiesta Bowl - Ohio State vs Clemson

This is the game everyone expects to be good...but it won’t be. Clemson has been the stepkid in the polls this year. We’re talking about the team that completely dismantled Alabama in last year’s championship game and still haven’t lost a game. This is a very good football team that gets no respect. They’ve taken a good ribbing for their schedule but they’ve also won every game this season. In fact, Clemson hasn’t lost a football game since the Obama administration.

Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne are going to put on a clinic for the Buckeye defense. This is a pair made in heaven. If you fall back to stop Lawrence, Etienne is going to have a full head of steam before you get to him. If you bunch up to stop Etienne, Lawrence will go deep and pick you apart.

Across the ball from the Tigers, Ohio State has gotten a lot of press, respect, and attention. They had two Heisman finalists, high rankings in the polls...but have they really played anyone? Georgia fans are up in arms about Justin Fields and the season he has had in Columbus. But it’s easy for a decent quarterback to get big numbers against Maryland and Rutgers. So now we have a day of reckoning. The Buckeyes aren’t playing Miami (OH) this time. How many times have we seen the Buckeyes waltz through their schedule before getting blasted by a Southern team in bowl season? However many it was, go ahead and add another one. Dabo is taking the kids to the Big Easy.

Peach Bowl - Oklahoma vs LSU

I’m not sure what else can be said about this one. LSU’s defense has been suspect at times this year but they still might be the toughest D the Sooners have seen. And I can’t imagine anything Oklahoma could do to stop Joe Burrow. His performance in the SEC Championship Game was exemplary. Georgia has one of the best defenses in school history and Joe did what he wanted. He comes into this game with plenty of weapons at his disposal. The running game is solid, receivers are plenty, the offensive line is mighty. Burrow is that quarterback that makes everyone around him better. He leads by example and the guys want to play harder.

I dont want to take anything away from Sooners quarterback Jalen Hurts. He’s a magnificent ball player but I’ve been far more impressed by how he has handled himself throughout his transfer and experience with his new team. That’s indicative of character and a leader with character is a winner. He won in Tuscaloosa and now in Norman. His team counts on him because they know they can. He has a knack for making things happen on the football field. I think he’ll keep the Sooners in the game for a while but LSU is just too much.

Coach Drew Burnham

​GEORGIA VS BAYLOR
At face value, this one seems like a gimmie. The Dawgs should roll with little to no issue if you simply look at the rosters. However, college football is great because there’s a lot more there than talented rosters when it comes to winning games. Baylor might just be the most under-rated team in the country. They lost twice this season, both to Oklahoma by a combined total of 10 points. That’s not too shabby. They allowed 30 points only twice this season playing in the high flying Big 12 where anybody can hang 40 on you and still lose any given week. Last but anything but least, they have one of the most outstanding team cultures in the country. “Culture” has become such a buzzword in college football in the last few years. EVERYONE claims to prioritize it because they do know for a fact that it is of upmost importance. However, in many circumstances, it’s just good board talk and x’s and o’s and winning at all costs often creep ahead of culture development on coaching staff’s to do list. In the volatile and insecure world of college football coaching, the pressure to win now often scares coaches away from playing the long game. The successful game. They feel like they don’t have time because they will surely be fired before a true, deep rooted, well built culture can take hold. They aren’t built over night. However, look at the teams that love each other. Look at the teams who are well-known for having a blast, playing for each other and working hard. PJ Fleck has now built a winner at…Minnesota? Yea, that’s right. Will Healy came in and took UNC-Charlotte to its first bowl game in school history and produced a winning season at a place who had never even had the thought in his first season. Matt Rhule came from Temple into one of the biggest dumpster fires in the history of the game. How did he fix it and get the Bears to the Sugar Bowl? He took his time. He didn’t cut corners. He didn’t mix up his priorities in fear of being fired before his process worked. Look at them now. I believe more than anything else in this world that culture wins. UGA doesn’t have culture. They have star power. They’re athletic. They’re highly touted recruits. They have all that going for them and they are certainly an elite program. But culture wins. Look for the Bears to find a way to get this one done. Don’t look for it to be pretty but look for it to get done.

OHIO ST VS CLEMSON
This section could be written in readers digest version by simply saying “see above section for details” but I don’t get paid all this money by ABG to cut corners. Dabo Swinney is a wizard. How in the world he manages to be the undefeated reigning National Champion and still talk his way into the entire country considering the Tigers an underdog is Oscar worthy. How does that happen? “Ah we’re just little ole Clemson. On the ROY bus. Alabama is the king. Stop looking at those trophies and rings! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” It’s simply incredible. They must be the worst undefeated team in the history of college football. I get it. The ACC is down this year. That’s fine. The ACC wasn’t exactly a juggernaut last year and they won the national title like they were playing the class AA South Carolina High school State Runner-up. They lost a lot off that team but what do we think Dabo replaced them with? Some low end walk on’s who got turned down by Wake Forest? Come on. This Clemson team is loaded. Ohio State is good. They’re really good. I think they also have a great culture to match. BUT. This is Dabo – the inventor of culture. There are none better, despite plenty of high-quality impersonators. This has all the makings of a great game, I’m just amazed at how easily Dabo has been able to crush any hype from forming around this team all year. It’s been a masterful performance and I look forward to watching them limp and crawl their way to a win in this game.
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LSU VS OKLAHOMA
Bad news boys and girls: no one is going to beat LSU this year. This section has nothing to do with Oklahoma. Nothing. There may have never been another coach to walk the face of the earth who was a better fit to lead LSU than Coach O. Les was certainly close. His personality fit but he was a yank. Ed is one of their own. It’s a fairytale. He is absolutely perfect. He has rebuilt and retooled this program into an eye-popping force. Their underdog, chip on the shoulder QB has found a perfect home to allow him to reveal his true potential to the world. I love Lincoln Riley. I love him as a coach and a man. I love his tiny call sheet. I love his coaching style in being unapologetically who he is and doing what he believes in. I love his unmistakable ability to develop and showcase QB’s that he didn’t recruit. There is an extremely short list of teams that I would not pick them to beat, but Coach O is playing a different game than everyone else right now. Geaux Tigers!

Curator’s Picks
​MEMPHIS over PENN ST
FLORIDA over VIRGINIA
CLEMSON over OHIO ST
LSU over OKLAHOMA
GEORGIA over BAYLOR
WISCONSIN over OREGON
MICHIGAN over ALABAMA
AUBURN over MINNESOTA

Coach’s Picks
​PENN ST over MEMPHIS
FLORIDA over VIRGINIA
CLEMSON over OHIO ST
LSU over OKLAHOMA
BAYLOR over GEORGIA
WISCONSIN over OREGON
ALABAMA over MICHIGAN
MINNESOTA over AUBURN