These teams were supposed to play in the Music City Bowl in 2020, but COVID got in the way of that. The teams’ bowl meeting was cancelled, making this matchup a redo of what was supposed to occur four years ago.
For football fans above a certain age, the idea that Nebraska would ever spend seven years in a row without a winning record was as inconceivable as a conference that stretches from New Brunswick, N.J. to Los Angeles.
The Cougars are a shell of what they used to be. And that’s a big problem against surging Syracuse. The Orange won their final three games and have their sights set on a 10-win season. Syracuse has only won 10 games twice in the past quarter-century, and getting there in Fran Brown’s first year would represent a major shift for the Orange.
This is the rare bowl game these days where both sides have some motivation. Oklahoma’s motivation mostly lies with its coach, but it’s motivation nonetheless. A loss here would leave the Sooners under .500 for the second time in Brent Venables’ three years in Norman.
Rutgers 2.0 might not be ready to compete with Kansas State 2.0. Of course, that depends on which version of Kansas State 2.0 actually shows up. The Wildcats have been maddeningly inconsistent, which is why they weren’t able to win the Big 12.
Has San Jose State learned its lesson from a year ago? Last year, the Spartans made it to the Hawai’i Bowl for a homecoming for then-quarterback Chevan Cordeiro, but the rest of the team neglected to show up. San Jose State got caught napping in a 24-14 loss to Coastal Carolina, and the result was never really in doubt.
Welcome to the first time in recent memory that Tennessee will visit a Big Ten stadium. The Volunteers typically don’t play Big Ten teams during the regular season, in part because SEC teams usually matched with Big Ten opponents in bowl season.
After two blowouts in the first two games of the College Football Playoff, now comes a game that most expect to be a blowout. Texas has only lost twice all year, and both defeats came against No. 2 seed Georgia.
There’s about 198 miles that separate Bloomington and South Bend on the roads of Indiana. On the football field, there’s about a lifetime of separation.