Power Ranking Top 10 Bowl Games by Their Swag Gifts

It's officially college football bowl season. But more to the point, it's officially college football bowl gift season.

The gift packages each bowl gives away are a deserved prize to the teams that won six or more games. The NCAA allows each bowl to award $550 worth of "swag" to 125 participants per school, and the bowls know how to make that money count.

But some bowls know better than others. And the order of those bowls is pretty random. The team with the best record doesn't always make the bowl with the best gifts. A lot of it is luck of the draw.

In 2014, the real winners are Central Michigan and Western Kentucky, which earned an invite to the newly formed Bahamas Bowl in Nassau.

Not including that, however, here are the 10 bowl games with the best gift packages this season.

10. AdvoCare Texas Bowl

Gareth Patterson/Associated Press

The Teams

Arkansas and Texas (Texas Bowl)

The Goods

• Adidas Team Speed duffel bag
• Cap
• Belt buckle

The Texas Bowl belt buckle is an easy thing to mock. It's a kitschy gift, sure, and roughly 1 percent of college kids will use it.

But credit where credit is due. The Texas Bowl has created a tradition, which if nothing else helps people remember it exists. The first thing I think of when here "Texas Bowl" is the belt buckle. The first thing I think of when I hear most other bowls is…"the what?"

Also, if we're lucky, this year's gift will give us a picture of Bret "All Hog" Bielema, belly folded over his waistline, wearing an oversized piece of metal near his midsection.

I have my "retweet image" finger at the ready.

9. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

Stew Milne/Associated Press

The Teams

Western Michigan and Air Force

The Goods

• Ohio backpack
• Winter coat
• Winter gloves
• Winter beanie
• Big Game football

Gotta love a bowl that knows its audience.

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is gifting winter clothes to teams from Michigan and Colorado, where they will surely be put to good use. Not the way they were trashed, most likely, in 2013, when San Diego State brought a team with no use for ski gear to Boise.

This year feels a lot more apropos.

8. Miami Beach Bowl

USA TODAY Sports

The Teams

BYU and Memphis

The Goods

• Under Armour sunglasses
• Under Armour cap
• Oakley Halifax backpack
• Electronics product

You get the sunglasses. You get the cap. You get the backpack.

But you also get the "electronics product."

What electronics product? I don't know. No one knows. That's the fun. It's the gift of the unknown. Even if it ends up being a toothbrush or something—which, let's be honest, it probably will—there was always the chance it might have been a Tesla.

It's like the lottery of bowl gifts.

7. Hawaii Bowl

USA TODAY Sports

The Teams

Fresno State and Rice

The Goods

• Oakley Holbrook sunglasses
• Oakley Works backpack
• Tori Richard aloha shirt
• Pro Athletics t-shirt/shorts/swim trunks
• Beach towel

The Hawaii Bowl gives out a dress-like-you're-from-Hawaii gift set to its teams every season, and it never ceases being awesome.

The Tori Richard aloha shirt is a longtime staple and works well with this year's teams, Fresno State and Rice, which both come from warm-weather schools. They can get away with wearing those all year.

Anything that works for Robert Kekaula works for me.

6. National University Holiday Bowl

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

The Teams

Nebraska and USC

The Goods

• $445 Best Buy gift card and shopping trip
• Fossil watch
• Cap

You might be wondering why cap is highlighted. And that's fair. It's just a hat. It's unremarkable. It's almost deliberately unspecific.

But compare this with the similar gift package offered by the Russell Athletic Bowl and the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl: a $447 Best Buy gift card, a watch and an athletic performance t-shirt.

Is two extra dollars at Best Buy—along with the hope that "watch" means something better than Fossil—worth the trade down from t-shirt to cap? I don't know, man. It's close.

No shirt means no service. But no cap means no subtle homage from Nebraska to former head coach Bo Pelini, a notorious cap-wearer and lover of three-letter words that begin with C-A.

Gotta go with the cap.

5. Raycom Media Camellia Bowl

Carlos Osorio/Associated Press

The Teams

South Alabama and Bowling Green

The Goods

• Fossil watch
• Cap
• Souvenir pylon
• Football

Honestly, this is all about the Peacock Theory. I won't insult you by pretending it's not. The weirdest gift in the room always wins.

And a pylon is the weirdest gift in the room.

Plus, if any four teammates share an apartment, they could combine to put an end zone in their living room or…uh…something.

No. I said I wouldn't insult you.

Weirdest gift in the room always wins.

4. Valero Alamo Bowl

Harry How/Getty Images

The Teams

Kansas State and UCLA

The Goods

• GoPro Hero4 Silver camera and 32 GB memory card
• Fossil watch
• Oakley Works backpack
• Schutt mini helmet
• Panoramic photo

The Valero Alamo Bowl gives out a decent gift package, highlighted by a GoPro Hero4 Silver camera and 32 GB memory card.

That camera is especially useful for the team from Southern California, UCLA, which can use it to document the landscape and the beaches and the women they go to school with, post a video to social media and make every 20-something male who doesn't go to college on the West Coast reassess important life choices.

Quarterback Brett Hundley can also use it as a body cam to catch footage of his day job as the Campus Enforcer.

3. Military Bowl

USA TODAY Sports

The Teams

Cincinnati and Virginia Tech

The Goods

• Microsoft Xbox One console
• Under Armour backpack
• Might Boom Ball speakers
• Beanie

The offseason is long. So is the time after practices and meetings in training camp. Some of these guys still live in dorm rooms too.

Video games are an important part of college.

So I guess an Xbox One is not the worst…console-ation prize.

2. Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl

Thomas Graning/Associated Press

The Teams

Ole Miss and TCU

The Goods

• $300 Vanilla Visa Gift Card
• Chick-fil-A Gift Card
• Apple TV
• Fossil watch
• Football

Apple TV on its own would have made the top half of this list.

But Apple TV to go with a $300 Visa gift card, some free Chick-fil-A and a couple of smaller gifts clinches a spot in the top two.

How else is Dr. Bo supposed to watch his Grey's Anatomy? 

And who cares if he thinks it's a documentary?

1. Quick Lane Bowl

Jay LaPrete/Associated Press

The Teams

Rutgers and North Carolina

The Goods

• $250 Best Buy gift card
• Sony headphones
• Custom-made Fathead for each player with their likeness
• Various apparel
• Football

This is awesome.

A custom-made Fathead runs from $25 to $140, depending on size, which means it could easily be afforded by some of the other bowls' gift cards. But it's the sort of thing that one would never buy if they didn't have to. It can only be received as a gift.

Which is exactly what makes it the perfect gift from a bowl game. It will endure as a memory of the experience. The source of the gift will at no point be forgotten or become a footnote. It will forever remind both teams of the time they played in the Quick Lane Bowl.

Fifty bucks says Larry Fedora asks for this one.

Note: All gift info via David Broughton of SportsBusinessDaily.com.