The Texas Bowl has become the Dave Aranda Bowl, as Aranda now faces his previous employer. The Baylor coach was the LSU defensive coordinator in 2019, before he left for the head job in Waco.
Is there a less impressive 9-3 team than Illinois? The Fighting Illini really benefited from a weak Big Ten schedule, as they didn’t beat a single Top 25 opponent all season. Their best win turned out to be Michigan, and that wasn’t much to write home about.
Louisville has to be kicking itself for some of its early losses. The Cardinals shot themselves in the foot at Notre Dame with three turnovers. Their defense couldn’t hold up against Miami, and they couldn’t get the offense going in the fourth quarter against SMU.
It’s been just under a year since Alabama and Michigan squared off in last year’s College Football Playoff, and neither side is where they wanted to be this time around.
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.
NFL Week 17 Power Rankings. Trent Conner has you covered on every team as the season winds down.
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.