The Bowl Season In Review

The college bowl season has finally come to an end, with the Auburn Tigers knocking off the Oregon Ducks to become the undisputed* champions of the world.

And so, in light of the bowl season, I present to you the results of every bowl game, divided into my own special categories.

Bowls That We Could Do Without (there are a lot of them)

New Mexico Bowl
BYU 52 UTEP 24

uDrove Humanitarian Bowl
Northern Illinois 40 Fresno State 17

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl,
Ohio 21 Troy 48

Beef 'O' Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl
Southern Mississippi 28 Louisville 31

MAACO Las Vegas Bowl
Utah 3 Boise State 26

S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Navy 14 San Diego State 35

Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
Hawaii 35 Tulsa 62

Little Caesars Bowl
Florida International 34 Toledo 32

AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl
Air Force 14 Georgia Tech 7

Champs Sports Bowl
West Virginia 7 NC State 23

Military Bowl Presented By Northrop Grumman
East Carolina 20 Maryland 51

Texas Bowl
Illinois 38 Baylor 14

Valero Alamo Bowl
Oklahoma State 36 Arizona 10

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
Army 16 SMU 14 

Meineke Car Care Bowl
South Florida 31 Clemson 26

Hyundai Sun Bowl
Notre Dame 33 Miami 17

AutoZone Liberty Bowl
Georgia 6 UCF 10

Discover Orange Bowl
Stanford 40 Virginia Tech 12 

GoDaddy.com Bowl
Middle Tennessee 21 Miami (Ohio) 35

BBVA Compass Bowl
Pittsburgh 27 Kentucky 10

Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
Nevada 20 Boston College 13

Bowls That Were Surprisingly Entertaining

Insight Bowl
Missouri 24 Iowa 27

New Era Pinstripe Bowl
Kansas St. 34 Syracuse 36 

Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl
North Carolina 30 Tennessee 27 (final / 20T)

TicketCity Bowl
Northwestern 38 Texas Tech 45

Bowls That Disappointed

Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl

Nebraska 7 Washington 19

Chick-fil-A Bowl
South Carolina 17 Florida State 26 

Outback Bowl
Florida 37 Penn State 24 

Capital One Bowl
Alabama 49 Michigan State 7

Gator Bowl
Mississippi State 52 Michigan 14

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
Connecticut 20 Oklahoma 48

AT&T Cotton Bowl
LSU 41 Texas A&M 24 

Bowls That Lived Up To The Hype

Rose Bowl Game presented by VIZIO 
Wisconsin 19 TCU 21

Allstate Sugar Bowl
Ohio State 31 Arkansas 26

Tostitos BCS National Championship Game
Oregon 19 Auburn 22

The moral of this laundry list of bowls is simple: there are too many games. There's lots to say about the bowl system and all the things it screws up. But before we go pointing fingers, the bowls bring some positives as well. Every bowl is a festival, another 3 hours of football for us to watch. But the fact is, right now, most of the match ups are terrible. You'd think that if teams like Northern Illinois and Fresno State were going to get bowl invites, the bowl committees would at least be able to find competitive games for them But that simply isn't the case. If the bowl system is going to continue, and it looks like it will, then bowls desperately needs to make some changes.