College Football Bowl Season in Review

The college Bowl season finally came to an end on Wednesday night as Texas defated USC 41-38 for the national championship. This was one of the best bowl seasons that I have witnesses as many of the games game down to the final minutes and there were many surprise finishes. A few of my favorite games include Tulsa vs. Fresno St, Penn St. vs Florida St, Michigan vs Nebraska, West Virginia vs Georgia and of course Texas vs USC. The biggest surprises of the bowl season include Missouri over South Carolina, Nebraska over Michigan, West Virginia over Georgia, Wisconsin over Auburn, and in many peoples minds (not including mine) Texas over USC…but by far the biggest surprise of the bowl season had to have been LSU destroying Miami 40-3.

Below are some of my thoughts on the bowl games:

The Penn State vs. Florida State game was the longest and most dragged out game I have ever seen. It was a great game but at the same very frustrating to watch. The game went to tripple overtime and lasted over 3 hours. Everyone knew that Penn St. was going to win the game because they were clearly better. Penn State had ample opportunities to end the game in regulation. They gave up several turnovers in ther red zone and missed a field goal. Penn State outplayed Florida State but Penn gave up two big plays to keep Florida State in the game.

The National Championship game was one of the best games I have ever witnessed. It was an amazing game as it came down to the last seconds as Vince Young scored the winning touchdown with 19 seconds left in regulation. Weeks before the National Championship game was played, I made it public to my peers and everyone around me that I believed Texas would defeat USC. I had several reasons for believing this. First, USC plays in a one dimensional conference. The pacific-10 is all offense and no defense as every game is very high scoring. This includes USC themself, there defense is middle of the road. They let many teams put up a lot of points on them. Don’t get me wrong, USC has a fantastic offense, probably the best in the nation, but defense wins championships and no matter how good your offense is, if your team is one dimensional you wont win the big games. They let Fresno St. who finished 3rd in the WAC almost get away with the win. Let me remind you that Fresno St. ended the season by losing 4 in a row. They also let Notre Dame who I believe to be the most overrated team in the nation almost get away with the win. I was also skeptic of USC because there schedule was so weak. The Pac-10 has one, maybe two good teams. Top to bottom they are horrible. Oregon and USC are the only teams you can look at and say they are a good team and even then I have a hard time saying that because Oregon did not have to play UCLA and had a very weak non conference schedule. Some of you might say, “hey what about UCLA!?!?”, well just like every other team in the Pac-10, they are one dimensional, and in fact, had one of the worst ranked defenses in the nation. Like I said earlier, UCLA did not have to play Oregon and the only good team they played was USC. So pretty much USC has a great offense, very mediocre defense. Texas is a much more complete team and they play in a better conference. This is why I cannot understand why people claimed USC to win the national championship before it even happened. Texas’ offense and defense ranked among the top in the nation. They beat who I believe to be the second or third best team in the nation, Ohio St. at home! Ohio St. played Notre Dame (who USC played) in the Fiesta Bowl. Ohio St. took Notre Dame with ease and could have easily beat them by four touchdowns. USC has not seen any time even in the same ballpark as Texas. They have not seen a defense in this same universe as close to Texas and they have not seen any player like Vince Young. I knew from the start that USC would have a very hard time containing Vince Young and they did. I said Texas would win and they did. I can go on a lot longer why I thought Texas would beat USC but these were my main thoughts and points.

I knew Oregon would lose to Oklahoma as I believed from the start that they were a very overrated team as like USC, they are a one dimensional team. They did play better defense than I thought they would but they still could not beat a very one dimensional team.

Marcus Vick…Marcus, Marcus Marcus…you blew it! Virginia Tech gave you more chances then you deserved and you blew it. What will probably happen now is that Marcus will decide to enter the NFL Draft instead of joining a smaller school Randy Moss opted to do when he got kicked out of Florida St. and went to Marshall. Some team will take a chance on Marcus but he wont get picked up until the second day of the draft.

Big 10 was clearly the best conference in football this year. Top to bottom no conference was close. In the bowl games they won half the BCS bowls and Wisconsin beat Auburn, a team that people thought was playing good enough to beat anyone. Big-10 ended the season on a high note and deserved it.

Best Game:
Have to give it to the Rose Bowl with Texas and USC. A fantastic and exciting game with two of the best schools playing there hardest. Second place goes to Penn State and Florida State.

Worst Game:
The Fort Worth Bowl featuring Kansas and Houston. The game that no one cared about lived to its expectations. It was a blowout from the start between the two teams that I could care less about.

Biggest Upset:
By far it was the Peach Bowl with LSU hading Miami its worst bowl defeat in the schools history. LSU won by the score of 40-3. Second place goes to the Emerald Bowl. Utah beat Georgia Tech by a score of 38-10.

Most Underrated:
Motor City Bowl: Memphis 38 Akron 31. Memphis has a great RB in DeAngelo Williams watching him perform alone made this game exciting to watch.

Best Player:
Vince Young out of Texas. Watch out Michael Vick, I think this guy could be better. I believed all along that Young deserved to win the Heisman over Bush. Young’s passing and rushing stats were outstanding. Bush who I thought did not deserve to win the heisman, is a very one dimensional player. He never did any of the dirty work as Lendale White was put in during all the short yardage situations, he is a situational player and will always be one, even in the NFL, and with all USC’s offensive targest including Leinart, Jarret, and Lendale, in additional to the below average defense in the Pac 10, how are you supposed to concentrate on Bush? This made it much easier for Bush to excell then for Young. I dont want to take away all the credit from Bush because I do think he is an outstanding player, but not deserving of a heisman.