Bowl Season Rankings

by BMG on Jan 11, 2011 11:56 AM CST

Bowl season can be a tumultous time of coaching changes (see Texas), bowl wins or losses, suspensions (see Ohio State) and annoucements of early departures. With bowl season in the books, its time to look back and see which teams had the best and worst bowl seasons.

Top Five Worst Bowl Seasons

Michigan - The Wolverines got smoked by Mississippi State and fired Rich-Rod. To make matters worse, Les Miles looks like the leading candidate to replace Rodriguez (ESPN reporting otherwise).
UConn - Your 15 minutes are up, exit stage left please. UConn lost by four TDs to OU in a BCS bowl that they didn't deserve to be in. Randy Edsall thought so highly of the UConn job that he called the Maryland job a "dream job" and jumped ship. The silver lining: looks like the basketball team could make a run in March.
Nebraska - Nebraska stumbled out the Big 12 with a horrible loss to a Washington team they beat 56-21 in the regular season. NU managed just 7 points and questions surround the future of the their QB as well as the head coach. Pelini has been linked to multiple coaching vacancies and has been rumored to have interest in the LSU job if it becomes available.
Miami - Another year or two like this and we might have to start referring to them as "Miami of Florida". Miami dropped the Sun Bowl to Notre Dame, fired Randy Shannon, and hired little known Al Golden as the new head coach. To his credit, Golden has landed 5 new commitments since he took the job and its possible things are looking up. This ranking is just confirmation that Miami has a long way to go out of this obscurity.
Texas A&M - I'm sure this ranking will annoy the aggie faithful, but this is what happens when the expectation of a statement bowl victory over an SEC team is rudely introduced to reality. The ags showed that they are not a big 12 championship contender, let alone national championship contender next year. The defense gave up 446 total yards and nearly 300 on the ground, and surrendered 3 TD passes to a QB that is probably no better than Jerrod Johnson. QB savior Ryan Tannehill threw 3 picks to boot. A&M is improving, but this loss was still a setback.

Others receving votes:

Ohio State - Tressell finally beat an SEC team, but he had to leverage next season in order to do it. Starting QB Pryor, RB Herron, WR Posey, and LT Adams will not play again for the Buckeyes until mid October so the run of BCS bowl games may be in jeopardy.

Top Five Best Bowl Seasons

Auburn - Auburn won the MNC, kept their wunderkind OC from taking a head coaching job (may not last if Les Miles takes the Michigan job), and 12 hours into their national championship glory, Cam Newton remains eligible.
TCU - TCU probably has the best case for deserving a share of the national championship game out of any undefeated team in the BCS era that did not play in the MNC game. TCU beat a good Wisconsin team in the Rose Bowl, while neither Auburn nor Oregon looked terribly impressive. The Frogs could have run with Auburn, and probably could have won. In addition, TCU finalized plans to move to a BCS conference in 2012 and the staff remains intact.
Florida State - FSU has taken full advantage of the fact they are the top dog in Florida for the time being. Expect to see them on many preseason top 25 and, potentially, top 10's.
Florida - Florida bids adieu to Urban Meyer with a win against Paterno's Penn State squad, but not before they hire Will Muschamp as the new head coach. Muschamp hires Charlie Wies as his OC, and brings in several other solid hires.
Texas - After enduring the worst season in his tenure, Mack Brown cleans house and brings in top notch coaching hires in every position. The top rated recruiting class remains intact and the icing on the cake would be a top flight offensive line coach to be named this week. Texas looks like it will rebound nicely in 2011.

All comments, FanPosts, and FanShots are the views of the reader-authors who create them.

Tweet Comment 14 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Re: Ohio St

I just really don’t see how or why those 5 OSU players will come back next year – I don’t care what was said, agreed to, or signed. (I’m specifically talking about Pryor, Posey, Herron. They are draft-eligible, correct?)

1) Their stock is high, why come back? Their stock could fall regardless of how much they play. But more importantly, being out 5 weeks could make that stock bottom-out.

2) You’re actually going to sit out roughly 1/2 of the regular season or 1/3 of the total season? Yea, right. Yea that’s the consequences of being stupid, but I’m supposed to believe they’re going to agree to sit out and screw their season & NFL potential?!? Riiiight.

3) As you mentioned, the post-season (conf, national, BCS) potential is in considerable jeopardy. Those 5 guys will have to be monumental in leading the rest of the team to play tough, mistake-free, undefeated, etc.

I will be completely and utterly shocked if they all come back and actually sit out the 5 weeks. My money says they (or some) of them are in the draft and/or Sweater Vest reduces the length of the suspension because “…they have shown remorse, paid their dues, made great strides in their commitment, blah blah blah…”

I’m guessing Sweater Vest is already creating his spin for the fans outcry of why the players suspension was reduced and/or why they’re defecting to the NFL.

by Go Bevo on Jan 11, 2011 1:23 PM CST reply actions

How can Tressel reduce the suspension given by the NCAA?

by vy til i die on Jan 11, 2011 1:37 PM CST up reply actions

He can't,

but I think the point was he could have started the suspension with the bowl and gotten one game out of the way.

"Only angry people win football games." --DKR

by OBdoc on Jan 11, 2011 2:42 PM CST up reply actions

I mean the point of the original post.

"Only angry people win football games." --DKR

by OBdoc on Jan 11, 2011 2:44 PM CST up reply actions

dizzy

iI get dizzy when I read at what these idiots did and how the supposedly no nonsince NCAA can let this kind of bullchit go on. They Killed SMU and put a beating on school after school including FSU in the past and now pussy foot around Auburn OSu and nurmerous other violations all over the country. We need to fire the NCAA and put in a new policing system. I guess in the 21st century you can get away with anything. Just ask the bankers

by honest indian on Jan 13, 2011 7:57 AM CST up reply actions 1 recs

Uhhhh....

Michigan State? How could they possibly not make this list, probably at #1?

by luxar on Jan 11, 2011 1:34 PM CST reply actions

Maybe because nobody thought they had a prayer.

by Loisaida Horn on Jan 11, 2011 2:29 PM CST up reply actions

Michigan state

I wrestled with putting them in the top 5 but I felt that next year’s expectations would not suffer as much as those for these teams. They were definitely in my top 10 along with mizzou and Georgia.

by BMG on Jan 11, 2011 7:16 PM CST via mobile up reply actions

Sparty got, um, violated by Bammer

Due to the presence of the wonderful ladies who frequent this site, I refrained from using the first euphemism that sprung to mind. I disagree with your assessment that a beatdown of that magnitude won’t hurt next season’s performance (or many years down the road). It will be interesting to see if Sparty’s legendarily shaky mental state won’t be even more fragile as a result of that game.

Whatever you are, be a good one.
Abraham Lincoln

by beast in bama on Jan 12, 2011 5:18 PM CST up reply actions