clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Bowls

Bowl games are very strange football games people pretend not to like. It's ok to like bowl games.

Get ready for a very weird 2020 bowl system

Not enough teams! Canceled conference tie-ins! Money weirdness!

24 Questions about the Duke’s Mayo Bowl

These are all very important!

The many national titles altered by old Big Ten bowl rules

The Big Ten’s skepticism about bowl games shifted a ton of history.

203 bowl game sponsors, graded by Coach Dunkability

Here’s a list of almost every major FBS bowl game ever, categorized by the only factor that currently matters.

Every time, LSU and New Orleans title games are inseparable

And the voodoo trend all the way back to the 1930s, kind of.

Every bowl’s weirdest game ever: A living calendar of oddity

Below are bowl/playoff scores and schedules, sure. More importantly, we have 44 pieces of wacky college football history throughout.

A short history of bowl relocation

Bowl are like people: sometimes they need to move to a new town and change their name!

2019 bowl season’s 50 finest moments, ranked by The Top Whatever

Each week or so, The Top Whatever ranks all the college football things that must be ranked. This edition ranks the entire 2019 season’s postseason.

Who bowl sponsors think I am

A day in the life of the perfect bowl advertising target

The weird Granddaddy: How the Rose set six strange standards

Why are bowl games called "bowl games?" The answer to that and several other questions go back to the Rose Bowl.

Four hours is all we need

Most of the time, the Rose Bowl is a cog in the machine it created. And then one afternoon each year, it’s a dream made real.

Replacing the worst BIG BOWL teams of the BCS/NY6 era

Antiquated rules have meant some forgettable teams ascending to the biggest bowls.

The first Rose Bowl was one of the worst games ever

Fittingly for this sport, the 1902 Rose Bowl was ugly as hell, made a lot of money, and spawned a tradition that lasted generations.

The Plus-One system would’ve been better than the Playoff

Or at the very least, far more college football.

Nope, adding bowls hasn’t meant less competitive bowls

If you want to watch evenly matched football, then here’s some good news: now we have a lot more of it.

Postseason bans punish all the wrong people

Point this punishment much more squarely at the institutions themselves.

23 excuses for losing your bowl game, ranked by desperation

A guide to talking around an embarrassing postseason L.

2019’s CFP field is loaded, compared to 2014-2018

In most years, there’s a clear dropoff between the top team or two and the rest.

Bad Idea Time: Replace all bowl ties with randomized bids

Conference ties are a pain. Merely getting rid of them is not enough.

Bad Idea Time: Replace conference title games with FLEX GAMES

Two teams in your conference can play a 13th game against each other. Spend it more wisely.

Ranking all 123 bowl-banned teams ever

There have been way more NCAA-banned FBS teams than we thought. Here’s how they stack up across history.

Bowl projections, updated and explained

The newest predictions are below, with some other chitter chatter throughout. Updated November 3.

How to tell if your CFB season has an unusual number of contenders

It probably doesn’t, but here are two charts to check just in case.

Bowl projections, updated and explained

The newest predictions are here, with some other chitter chatter throughout.

Bad Idea Time: Move all of bowl season to Week 0

Hey, a coach gave us the idea.

The 63 greatest bowl game names of all time

A list filled with such beautiful poetry, the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl isn’t #1 any more.

A 91-year history of ‘too many bowl games’ whining

Don’t like football on TV? Then you’re making the same argument somebody was making back when there was only one bowl.

Bevo vs. Uga: Meet the photographer caught in middle of rampage

This photographer was just trying to do his job. Now he’s got a story to tell for the rest of his life.

Notre Dame’s lost 8 straight big bowls. Let’s rank them

When the Irish get to New Year’s Six-caliber games, they lose.

Exploring the weirdest bowl game sponsor of all time

An industrial park named after elk put its slogan on a game in the Caribbean. Standard college football behavior.

16 FAQs about how bowl games work, answered

College football has America’s weirdest postseason. Here’s how it currently works, explained somewhat briefly.

How to put a bowl game in a baseball stadium

How do you fit a rectangular peg into four unique diamonds?