Welcome to bowl season!
It’s the most glorious time of the year and it’s a bit different this season. The 12-team College Football Playoff has given us more games and also juggled the bowl schedule. Bowl season begins on Dec. 14 and now ends on Jan. 4 for the non-playoff bowls. After Jan. 4, there are still three playoff games to go as the national championship game is on Jan. 20.
Here are our unscientific rankings of all 39 bowl games, including the four first-round playoff games. The Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl are not included since we do not know what those matchups are going to be just yet.
(All times are Eastern.)
It was not a Cinderella year for NIU after beating Notre Dame in Week 2. The Huskies lost two straight after the victory over the Fighting Irish. QB Ethan Hampton started that win and nine other games. He’s now in the transfer portal. So is Fresno State QB Mikey Keene. He started all 12 games for the Bulldogs after throwing for nearly 2,900 yards and completing 70% of his passes.
The first bowl game of the season is almost a home game for South Alabama. Western Michigan got bowl-eligible in the final week of the season with a win over Eastern Michigan to snap a three-game losing streak. South Alabama averages 35 points a game and has a run game that averages over 5.5 yards a carry while Western Michigan allows over 186 yards rushing per game.
The Chanticleers lost five of six before beating Georgia State in the final week of the season to secure a sixth win. CCU allows over 30 points per game and ranks 106th in the country in scoring defense. UTSA scores over 32 points per game and has a deep receiving corps. Seven players have at least 20 catches and multiple TD grabs.
The team that’s given Alabama trouble the past two seasons needed to win two of its last three games to get bowl-eligible. USF is very boom-or-bust. The Bulls have scored at least 35 points six times. They’ve also scored 16 or fewer five times. The Spartans beat Stanford in the final week of the season to guarantee a winning record in former Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo’s first season. Nick Nash is one of the best wide receivers in college football. He has 104 grabs for 1,382 yards and 16 TDs.
ASU coach Butch Jones was rewarded with a contract extension at the end of the season as the Red Wolves are making back-to-back bowl appearances following five wins over the last two seasons combined. The ASU defense is leaky, however. Arkansas State has allowed 6.9 yards per play this season. Hopefully TE Harold Fannin Jr. plays in the game. He has 100 catches for 1,342 yards and nine TDs.
The Panthers have lost five straight after a 7-0 start. It’s been rough for Pitt after a rollicking game vs. Syracuse. That streak included the loss of starting QB Eli Holstein to a leg injury. He’s been replaced by Nate Yarnell. The Rockets beat Mississippi State a week before losing to Western Kentucky and also lost to Akron to end the season.
The Eagles beat Coastal Carolina and App State in the final weeks of the season to get bowl-eligible. JC French throws to three different targets with at least 550 receiving yards and LB Marques Watson-Trent is all over the field with 110 tackles in 11 games. Sam Houston coach K.C. Keeler is heading to Temple after leading the Bearkats to a nine-win season in their second year at the top level of college football.
It’s a shame this game isn’t being played in North Carolina, though Annapolis isn’t ridiculously far away from either campus. The Wolfpack will be without leading receiver Kevin Concepcion as he’s entered the transfer portal. ECU rebounded to make a bowl game after firing coach Mike Houston during the season. The Pirates were 4-1 under interim coach Blake Harrell and he’s been named the team’s permanent coach.
The Mountaineers will be led by an interim coach after Neal Brown’s firing. Memphis was the quietest 10-win team in the country after its September win over Florida State lost a lot of luster because of FSU’s struggles. The Tigers have scored at least 20 points in every game this season.
UConn is in its second bowl in the last three seasons under coach Jim Mora. A bowl win would give the Huskies their first nine-win season since 2007. UNC will be coached by Freddie Kitchens — yes, the former Browns coach — following the firing of Mack Brown. The game in Boston will give Patriots fans a look at a team that will be coached by Bill Belichick next season. Kidding. We think.
Remember, Navy still has to play Army on Saturday before the bowl game. QB Blake Horvath has 895 rushing yards and 13 TDs on just 133 carries. Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold is in the transfer portal, so the Sooners will be led by freshman QB Michael Hawkins. It’ll be a good audition for him ahead of 2025 as Oklahoma could look to the transfer portal for a quarterback.
Cal’s bowl destination is far, far closer than any of its road games in the ACC were this season. The Bears won three of their final five games to get bowl-eligible after a four-game losing streak. UNLV will be without coach Barry Odom after he took the head coaching job at Purdue. Two of UNLV’s three losses this season came to Boise State and the other was a three-point loss at Syracuse.
The Rams started the season 2-3 before winning six of their final seven games. Avery Morrow averages 5.8 yards a rush and has nine rushing TDs. The RedHawks fell to Ohio in the MAC title game to snap a seven-game win streak. This has all the makings of a low-scoring game.
The Hilltoppers lost to Jacksonville State in the Conference USA title game on Friday night and have dropped three of their last four games. Caden Veltkamp has completed 67% of his passes for over 6,800 yards. The Dukes run the ball nearly 40 times a game and will be looking to gash a WKU defense that allows over 220 rushing yards a contest.
Either Brent Pry or PJ Fleck will find themselves covered in mayonnaise after this game. What a reward for winning a bowl game. VT’s Bhayshul Tuten is one of the most fun running backs in college football. Minnesota has relied more on QB Max Brosmer this year and has thrown the ball more than it has run it.
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Points, points, points. Both teams are among the top 25 highest-scoring teams in college football. Former TCU QB Chandler Morris has thrown for 31 TDs for the Mean Green and Jordan McCloud has thrown for 29 TDs for the Bobcats.
Bahamania used to kick off bowl season. Now it ends it among the non-playoff games. Buffalo has four straight wins after losing three of four in the middle of the season. Liberty had a disappointing follow-up to its Fiesta Bowl season in 2023 and QB Kaidon Salter is in the transfer portal for the second straight season.
This is an intriguing matchup despite Tulane’s late slump. The Green Wave lost to Memphis and Army to end the season. The Gators have found their footing with freshman QB DJ Lagway and finished the season with a winning record thanks to a late-season upset win over Ole Miss. This game would be higher if Tulane QB Darian Mensah hadn’t entered the transfer portal on Sunday.
Bill O’Brien’s first year at BC resulted in a bowl game as Grayson James replaced Thomas Castellanos at quarterback. The Huskers are finally in a bowl game for the first time since 2016. We’ll let you think about the symmetry of a once-great program like Nebraska playing at the home stadium of a storied baseball team looking for its first World Series win in 15 years against a team from Boston.
The Cardinals have been bolstered by a career season from former Oregon and Texas Tech QB Tyler Shough. He has been healthy and has thrown for nearly 3,200 yards and 23 TDs. Issac Brown has also rushed for over 1,000 yards and 11 TDs. The Huskies turned to freshman QB Demond Williams Jr. in the final week of the season after Will Rogers had been the starter for most of the season.
The Horned Frogs have won five of their last six games and two of their four losses came by a combined four points. This is a team that wasn’t far from the Big 12 title game. Jack Bech has 62 catches for 1,034 yards and nine TDs. The Ragin’ Cajuns got rolled by Marshall in the Sun Belt title game and scored a shocking three points in the loss.
An 11th win for the Bobcats would make program history after they won their first conference title since 1968 on Saturday with a victory over Miami (Ohio). A bowl win will have to come without coach Tim Albin, however. He’s off to Charlotte to be the 49ers head coach. The Gamecocks are Conference USA champions and have a run game that averages 267 yards a game under Rich Rodriguez.
The Bears reeled off six straight wins to end the season and Dave Aranda will be back for the 2025 season. QB SawyerRobertson has thrown for 26 TDs and rushed for four more in 11 games. LSU could have a host of opt-outs. Will Garrett Nussmeier be one of them?
Both teams love to run the ball and are pretty good at it. Rutgers RB Kyle Monangai has 256 carries for 1,279 yards and 13 TDs this season. K-State RB DJ Giddens is explosive with 1,343 yards on just 205 carries, while Avery Johnson has rushed for 548 yards. This may be the one bowl game that doesn’t take four hours to complete.
Both teams moved to their backup quarterbacks during the season and the Week 1 starters are now in the transfer portal. Miller Moss was replaced by Jayden Maiava at USC, while Conner Weigman was sidelined for Marcel Reed in College Station. USC’s attempts to fix its defense are still a work in progress. The Aggies have lost two straight and fell out of SEC title contention as a result.
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When you narrowly miss out on your conference title the reward is the possibility of eating a giant Pop-Tart if you win your bowl game. Not sure how fair it is, but this is college football. Hardly anything makes sense and yet that entire first sentence also made total sense. We’ll see how many players for Miami opt out ahead of the bowl game.
These neighbors head to Tennessee to play each other in a Music City Bowl that was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. The Tigers’ Luther Burden III and Armand Membou have already opted out to prepare for the NFL Draft. Mizzou will have QB Brady Cook as he caps off his career and hopes to lead the Tigers to back-to-back 10-win seasons. Iowa will likely start QB Jackson Stratton, but the offense runs through RB Kaleb Johnson anyways.
The Rebels had playoff aspirations and instead head to Jacksonville to play a Duke team that defied preseason expectations in Manny Diaz’s first season. Jaxson Dart has thrown for nearly 3,900 yards and rushed for 452 but his interceptions at the end of the Rebels’ loss to Florida sealed the team’s playoff fate. Duke closed the season on a three-game win streak that was capped by an incredible last-second TD pass from Maalik Murphy to Jordan Moore to beat Wake Forest.
Shreveport gets a fun one. The Black Knights rip off 5.7 yards a carry and rush the ball 55 times a game. Marshall won the Sun Belt in Charles Huff’s final season; Huff is off to Southern Miss. The Thundering Herd are replacing him with NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson.
This is not a glamorous matchup but it’s a fun one for college football sickos who want to see effective grind-it-out offenses. Diego Pavia is the most chaotic player in college football, and Haynes King may not be that far behind. The Commodores have lost four of their last five games after starting 5-2, while Georgia Tech knocked off Miami and nearly took down Georgia.
This is not the Rose Bowl rematch that either team envisioned at the beginning of the season. But here we are after both teams missed the College Football Playoff. There will be opt-outs on both sides as each team looks ahead to 2026. Will it simply be a battle of which team is most motivated?
The Citrus Bowl has the first pick in the SEC after the College Football Playoff and went with an energized fan base. Illinois fans should be excited too after the Illini finished the season ranked in the top 25. This could be a relatively low-scoring game.
This could be the chaos bowl and we’re here for it. Tech averages 39 points a game and gives up nearly 35. Behren Morton throws the ball over 40 times a game and RB Tahj Brooks has over 1,500 rushing yards and 17 rushing TDs. The Arkansas offense averages 6.4 yards a play with QB Taylen Green as a dual-threat, but the Razorbacks struggle with turnovers. It’ll be surprising if this game isn’t entertaining.
The Cougars are looking to stop a late-season slide after losses to New Mexico, Oregon State and Wyoming. QB John Mateer does it all. He’s thrown for over 3,100 yards and rushed for over 800 with 44 total TDs. At Syracuse, QB Kyle McCord has been fantastic outside of a disastrous game at Pitt, throwing for over 4,300 yards. This could have the highest over/under of bowl season.
Colorado coach Deion Sanders has said that both Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders will play in the bowl game. We’ll see if he’s telling the truth, but we’re ranking this game like he is. Even though this is a Big 12 game, this has the potential to be entertaining. BYU doesn’t play in dull games.
Just how dangerous is a Clemson team playing with house money? The Tigers escaped the ACC title game with a 34-31 win over SMU to get into the playoff. Texas wasn’t dinged for its second loss to Georgia, and, well, the Longhorns have been unbeatable against anyone not named Georgia this season. Clemson also had its own issues with Georgia. The Tigers lost 34-3 to the Bulldogs in Week 1.
The Mustangs’ reward for being the last team in the playoff is a trip to State College. Penn State has a manageable road to the semifinals with a home game and a potential matchup with Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. A win over SMU will go a long way for James Franklin after his record fell to 3-18 against top-10 teams on Saturday.
Is this a bigger game for the state of Indiana than any AFC title game hosted by the Colts? It doesn’t seem like a crazy question given the separate football worlds these programs have operated in. Indiana wants to show it is for real after it’s faced questions about its schedule. Notre Dame, meanwhile, is red hot after having the worst loss of any playoff team.
You can understand why ESPN chose this for its prime-time matchup. Ryan Day may be in a national title-or-bust situation at Ohio State after losing to Michigan again. Tennessee has a dominant defensive front and an offense that can be explosive but is also inconsistent. The winner of this game will play Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Imagine telling someone 20 years ago that Ohio State could play Oregon in the Rose Bowl in the second round of the College Football Playoff and that both teams would be in the same conference.
