Explaining The Bowl Game That Ruined Bowl Games

[Music] let's talk about bowl games because bowl games are contentious topic they are games which are largely symbolic where coaches will try to put as many seniors in this possible who haven't opted out and winning does nothing more than get you a fancy ring in a very minuscule amount of bragging rights because like let's be honest who's going to Care in 10 years if you say you won the cheit bow and it will also line the pockets of your coaches but for players it really does very little except offer a cool week-long experience followed by a game where the blll hosters have done everything in their power to make you hate the other team before ever stepping on a field with them and you may wonder how I have such an esoteric knowledge of these things and you see I was part of the winning team of a bowl game I was uh in the 2015 celebration Bowl where I was a backup punter there you can actually say the ring right over there behind me somewhere actually you know what let's make this a little better right there bull ring so I've got got more than just your average knowledge about this kind of stuff so typically fans will have no expectations or storylines to come out of a bow game except trying to push whatever narrative they push before the bowl game like without fail whatever talking points they had before the game no matter what happens in the game they will make it fit their narrative but as the 2023 season ended and the playoffs were announced we got something a little spicier than usual we got a bowl game that had no National Championship implications that actually had some Stakes to it the game was the Orange Bowl where the number five in the nation Florida State University seminal were taking on the number six in the nation Georgia Bulldogs and this may be one of the most hyped non cfp Bull games ever so let me give you some backstory on these two teams real quick let's start first and foremost with a team that needs no introduction Georgia they've been on a threeyear tear where they've only lost two of those games both of those Gam games ironically being to the same team nonetheless which was the rolling tide of Alabama but we'll kind of get back to that later because neither of those two losses came in the national championship which they showed up in twice and won both times with one of those wins coming in the biggest blowout we've seen in the 2000s with a 65 to7 win over TCU and trust me I'll kind of be circling back around to that later too but this year a loss to Alabama was just enough to squeeze them out of the playoffs dropping them to the six seed despite the fact they have looked just about as good as they had the two years prior when they've won the National Championship back to back and frankly I don't think they cared about this bowl game as in the Orange Bowl whatsoever if it wasn't for their opponent Florida State so now let's get to the seminal because they were quite the talking point this year every year I would typically say FSU would be one of the most overrated teams they'd start high up in the rankings and then disappointing loss after disappointing loss they would fall from grace sometimes all the way out of the top 25 but definitely from the Heights that they'd be ranked at preseason this year though this year was different being led by Rising Superstar Jordan Travis with a Beyond Stout defensive core they were nothing short of being the real deal they came out and shocked a very good LSU team in the opening game as Jordan threw for 342 yards they then steamrolled Southern Miss 66 to3 and snuck past a sneakily good Boston team followed that up by taking Clemson down to the wire where they would beat them in overtime and they were showing that they could do it all blow teams out fight long gritty games whatever way you wanted to play it they would find a way to win it their best stretch was clearly weeks 5 through 8 were the closest game they played they had an 18-point difference but aside from that one they beat everybody else by over 20 points Travis was also lighting up the step sheet as much as the scoreboard during this dominant stretch and it was very clear that if they stayed on this trajectory not only did he have a high chance of winning the the Heisman but they were one of the best teams in the nation hands down but then disaster struck Travis got injured and now you may think this would be a disaster for the offense but in reality it was a disaster for the entire team you see Travis was such a big part of this team success that it meant that the voting crew wasn't sure that they would even be the same without him and now they had only three games to prove that they were going to be just as dominant as they were before but the truth is they weren't as dominant as they were before and that comes with a big old asteris of that they still won out I mean they dismantled their FCS opponent as they should have they played State rival Florida hard and were able to climb back from a 12-point deficit to win 24 to 15 and while these were wins and wins are wins the committee just wasn't convinced yes they were still ranked number four but now there were rumors circulating about them not being included in the playoffs as Texas and Alabama while both having lost a game early in the season finished out really strong and had all of their key pieces but assuming Florida could win their championship game and win it handily they would be a shoe in for the playoffs but as the game progressed it started to become clear this wasn't early in the season Florida State they were much less Dynamic on offense but a shining spot was their defense proving that they could hold the weight of their struggling offense not to mention they were on their third string quarterback after rhodman suffered a concussion against the Gators giving the committee even less reason to believe that they'd be ready for another rigorous playoff run and when the game was over yes they won but with a final score of 16 to6 in a very Iowa esque type game it left many a furrowed brow looking even worse in the light of Texas who handily dismantled Oklahoma State by four touchdowns and Alabama pulling off what some would consider a upset against Georgia in a 27 to 24 nailbiter so with all of this in consideration the committee had a big decision to make and since you already know the outcome I'm going to pull no punches when I say they pick to let Florida State sit out and for the first time ever a power five team who goes undefeated and wins their conference Championship was not competing for a national championship and without doubt this decision came with a lot of controversy for starters Florida's defense was really really good they proved it and they proved that they could carry their offense if they started to stutter and they didn't drop a single game because for those of you who don't know and haven't played football before winning is really really really hard but I'll say Alabama had a really strong season as well in fact their only loss was to another team their committee was looking at which was Texas and Texas won by 10 against them while also having a good season and only dropping a game to number 12 Oklahoma which is a huge rivalry game so you know teams are going to play a little bit harder oh yeah let me just uh cut back in real quick if you're wondering who the other two teams were it's Washington and Michigan two teams that you know won out and didn't lose a single game and also won their conference championships so they were for whatever reason a automatically included in right how how weird of an idea is that but let me let me not get too distracted okay so where were we oh yeah Florida didn't make the cut so let's look at their consolation prize it was being relegated to the Orange Bowl where they would have to take on Yes we finally completed the Circle Georgia and now maybe you can see why people were a little excited for this game the snubbed ACC team with a huge chip on their shoulder taking on the daunting Titan of college football where if they could win or even play them close they could prove to everybody that they had earned what they felt like they had really deserved to begin with which was a college football playoff spot and there was no better team to face than Georgia as they were the ones who had competed really hard with another team that was in the playoffs so if FSU beats Georgia they could handly say we could have hung with anybody and deserved to be in and it was kind of shapen up to be just that Georgia had outright said no one or no one of any importance was going to opt out so they were going to face them at full strength so the kickoff happens FSU punts Georgia turns it over on down Florida State punts again then Georgia scores and really we were Off to the Races what felt like it may be somewhat of a competitive game just completely flipped on his head as Florida state would only score a single field goal early in the second quarter and Georgia would have their second 60-point postseason blowout and the implications of this are much deeper more complex and bad for college football than most are willing to admit on the surface level we see this Florida did not want to be there they were missing two starting quarterbacks two starting running backs their top two wide receivers a starting tight end three of their starting defensive linemen two-thirds of their starting linebackers three starting defensive backs and a partridge in a pair tree per ESPN and any team missing that many key players is not going to be able to compete with anybody much less a high powerered Georgia team who's looking to end their season on a high note and maybe even try to prove proed to the committee that losing the SEC Championship isn't a reason to keep anybody out of the playoffs but on Florida's side they lost so much more than just this game in my opinion they lost their ability to argue for themselves they lost the ability to claim that they were snubbed regardless of the fact that let me just be honest here in my opinion I thought they did get snubbed because what are you even supposed to say after a game like this you can tell everybody until you're bleue in the face that yeah you had 29 of your starters not play this game does that make you feel better about getting blown up by 60 because it doesn't make your fans feel any better and it doesn't make Georgia feel any better about their win either as they never really got to play against Florida State's best honestly this is just a big puff of air way to end that just leaves you saying so what and I think this speaks to the problem of bowl games altogether because as much as I sound like I'm pissed at these seminal which honestly I kind of am there's also just another part of me that says can you blame blame them I mean they won all their games they fought through tremendous adversity and for what to play a purely symbolic Pride bowl while you can argue a difference in culture and how Georgia players were bought in to play for their pride Georgia really had nothing to lose and Florida really had nothing to win if Georgia lost it would only tell the world that Florida was really good and we would all feel even worse about the fact that they weren't in there and if Georgia won it's you know whatever they're Georgia they were supposed to win meanwhile all Florida state has to gain from this is maybe pull out a win against Georgia where they'd have to beat them by worse than Alabama beat them to even convince people that they were more deserving than Alabama to earn that spot and at the end of the day all this bowl game did remind us of is that outside of the playoffs blll games are pointless and nothing more than tools to push narratives that were going to be pushed regardless but I think this game more than any game in the past decade just drained the hope of Bull games making a meaningful Resurgence out of college football fans like me but I'd love to know what you guys think does this really signify the end of times for bowl games let me know in the comments below and I cannot wait to hear your guys' opinions on this anyway thanks for watching peace

Channel: Isaac Punts

Views: 507,533

Keywords: Orange Bowl, Georgia Football, Florida State, FSU Football

Id: 2qJAbuIBzq4

Length: 11min 11sec (671 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024