FanPost

Bowl Season Rankings



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

 

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

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