7 Reasons College Football Bowl Season Is the Best Time of the Year
It's more than an easy advertising slogan or a catchy holiday tune—bowl season is definitely the most wonderful time of the year for college football fans.
This is the time in the college football calendar when fans get to see big names square off, down-to-the-wire games become the norm, draft prospects shine for all to see and a happy dancing potato next to blue turf.
Trophies will be handed out, champions will be crowned and names will go down in history over the next several weeks. It's where unbridled love for the sport and unashamed commercialism collide to create a stuffed slate of college football fun.
The 2015 college football bowl season is already underway with what was a wildly entertaining Saturday of action this past weekend.
But maybe you didn't catch those early bowl games, or you're just not completely sold on college football's postseason. Here are seven reasons why you should love and embrace this time of year.
More Marathon Watch Sessions
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In just a few weeks, college football will hit the long, dark months of the offseason. Saturdays won't have that same end-to-end entertainment that a full day of gridiron action can provide.
But before we face our college football-less future, bowl season is here with several more marathon sessions of college football viewing.
The first one of those came on Saturday, when there was constant action between the start of the entertaining Celebration Bowl in Atlanta to the high-scoring New Orleans Bowl matchup. When one game ended, there was another to take its place, all the way into the late hours of the night.
And with the majority of bowl games being owned and operated as necessary programming by television networks—namely ESPN—the TV schedule is usually spaced out to where there is little overlap. While a postseason event like March Madness in college basketball almost guarantees that you'll miss some of the action, bowl season provides a better way to marathon.
So go ahead and circle your calendars on Dec. 26, 29, 30 and 31, along with Jan. 1 and 2. Those are the final loaded game days of the college football season, and you're going to miss them when they're gone.
Close Games Across the Board
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An average college football Saturday has both tight games and overmatched blowouts. But in bowl season, the competition tends to be much closer than the regular season.
Bowl committees and conference pecking orders for tie-ins seek to make bowl games as competitive as possible. Last season, a touchdown or less decided 19 of the 39 bowl games, with only seven cracking the 20-point mark in margin of victory.
Of the six bowl games this past Saturday, only two were decided by more than one possession. And according to Odds Shark, only two remaining bowls—the Independence and the Liberty—have double-digit point spreads.
Many of the remaining bowl matchups are excellent, especially in the coveted New Year's Six spots. Several teams that just missed out on the College Football Playoff—Iowa and Stanford; Notre Dame and Ohio State—will square off around the two star-studded semifinals.
Of course, not every close matchup on paper turns out that way, but the potential for plenty of competitive football is out there every bowl season.
All of the Offense
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The high number of big-play, nearly point-a-minute attacks in this day and age of college football have spoiled fans of high-flying offense.
This year's bowl season already provided plenty of offense on its first day. The Celebration, New Mexico and New Orleans bowls each had at least 75 points, with players such as North Carolina A&T's Tarik Cohen and Louisiana Tech's Kenneth Dixon stealing their respective shows.
Points shouldn't be hard to come by in several more games this bowl season. The nation's top two offenses in terms of yards per play, North Carolina and Baylor, will square off in the Russell Athletic Bowl—although the Bears are quite banged up on their first string. Oregon and TCU should put on an offensive show in the Alamo Bowl with Vernon Adams Jr. and Trevone Boykin leading the way.
"I think Oregon is a team that if they hadn't had all their injuries would've been a Top Four team," TCU head coach Gary Patterson said, per Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News. "We feel like without a couple injuries we had we would've been like that. ... I expect two really good football teams to get after each other."
That's music to offense lovers' ears.
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Unique Matchups
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A quick glance at this year's bowl schedule will reveal several awesome matchups fans wouldn't normally get to enjoy in the regular season.
We already got to see the rekindling of the Holy War rivalry in the Las Vegas Bowl. USF head coach Willie Taggart took on his former team of Western Kentucky on Monday afternoon in the Miami Beach Bowl.
Later on down the line, Ohio State versus Notre Dame will be a collision between two heavyweight names that feature boatloads of NFL talent. Nick Saban is taking his Alabama team to the Cotton Bowl Classic to face Mark Dantonio, his former assistant, and Michigan State. Stanford versus Iowa will be a newer spin on the classic Rose Bowl matchup.
These bowl matchups will also provide fans with some fodder for offseason debates over which conference is the best in college football. The SEC and Big Ten, as always, will go several rounds this bowl season with their usual clashes around New Year's Day.
In a day and age when fans are clamoring for more and more big-name nonconference matchups, bowl season has us all covered.
Bigger Stages for Smaller Schools
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People often overlook smaller programs during the regular season, save for the handful of teams fighting for a New Year's Six spot or those on random #MACtion or #FunBelt Tuesday nights.
Bowl season provides these lesser-known names to get noticed on a national scale, especially during the first few days of the postseason. This year's slate of games includes a number of fun matchups for exciting offenses and strong defenses, including Georgia Southern against Bowling Green in the GoDaddy Bowl to Toledo versus Temple in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Other teams will fight for their first bowl wins in quite a while—or maybe even their first ones ever as FBS members. That's what happened for Appalachian State when it hit a game-winning field goal Saturday to knock off Ohio in a wild Camellia Bowl comeback.
"I think on my way to Boone [Appalachian State's home city], I’ll probably be crying like a little girl," Appalachian State defensive lineman Ronald Blair said, per Brant Wilkerson-New of the Winston-Salem Journal. "It’s a tremendous honor. I’m just thankful to have a team, to be a part of a team like this."
Try telling those players and their fans that there are too many "meaningless" bowl games.
Final Showcases for Some of the Game's Best Talents
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Bowl season also provides a final opportunity for college football fans to see some of the game's best players suit up for their respective schools one more time.
Some players have already declared for the upcoming NFL draft, such as Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott and USC linebacker Su'a Cravens. These players already know they're getting a chance to shine for NFL teams one more time in a game setting.
Others, such as Ohio State defensive end Joey Bosa, Florida cornerback Vernon Hargreaves and Florida State defensive back Jalen Ramsey, have some draft decisions to make in the near future—but it's most likely they'll be headed early to the NFL.
And then there are the seniors in college football who will wrap up their standout seasons in bowl games, from TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin to Penn State defensive end Carl Nassib. Some other star college players in these games won't make it to the NFL, so these next few weeks will be the last time many will get to see them play football.
So if you're a fan of an NFL franchise looking at potential prospects or a fan of college football as a whole, these last games for star players should be must-see TV this holiday season.
The College Football Playoff
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Last but certainly not least, the crown jewel of bowl season—the College Football Playoff—is a major reason why this is one of the best times of the year.
The inaugural year of the playoff was a runaway success in terms of TV ratings and drama, and it was a win-win for fans other than the ones who root for the Baylor Bears or the TCU Horned Frogs. The playoff system is far from perfect, sure, but it opened up the door for two more worthy contenders to battle it out for the national title.
Now, this year, the playoff will feature the four clear-cut contenders for the national championship—Clemson, Alabama, Michigan State and Oklahoma—without any real controversy. The history between coaching staffs and on-field styles of play should make for two highly entertaining semifinals and a potential instant classic in the national championship game.
"Regardless of the winners, we are guaranteed to see a championship featuring teams that handle business differently," Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer wrote. "Clemson and Oklahoma do it with points. Alabama and Michigan State score points but also incorporate an element of physicality."
Questionable methods or controversial computer systems crowned national champions in past bowl seasons. Now fans can enjoy seeing the four best teams in the country settle who's No. 1 on the field.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
