Bowl Game – Page 3 – Syndication Server

Florida projected to play in Gator Bowl by ESPN ahead of 2023 season

Florida hasn’t played in a New Year’s Six bowl game since 2020, and ESPN thinks that trend will continue through the 2023 bowl season.

Projecting every bowl game before a single game has been played can be a dangerous game, but it’s a task ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach have taken off for a couple of years now.

The duo will continue to update their list throughout the season, but let the record show that Schlaback failed to include Florida as a bowl-eligible team in his preseason projections. Bonagura, on the other hand, has Florida playing North Carolina in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on Friday, Dec. 29, in Jacksonville.

The Gators playing in the Gator Bowl might seem like a cheap pick, but it was just two years ago that UF lost UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl. Local teams draw the biggest crowds to these lesser-known bowl games, and Florida travels well within the state.

Plenty of the players have ties to the Jacksonville area, so this seems like a perfect fit. North Carolina has Heisman candidate Drake Maye at quarterback, so the matchup would draw some fans from that, too.

Schlabach’s omission of Florida in his projections stings a bit more seeing Florida A&M and Florida Atlantic on the list, but the Gators do play one of the toughest schedules in the country this season. After barely reaching six wins in each of the past two seasons, perhaps it’s not unreasonable to think that Florida fails to hit that mark.

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Alabama returns to College Football Playoffs in latest bowl game projection

Alabama bounces back in 2023 to compete for a national championship in the latest bowl game projections.

In 2022, Alabama suffered two regular season losses, which left the Crimson Tide without an opportunity to compete for a conference title or a national championship. Finishing the season ranked No. 5, the Tide fell just short of making the College Football Playoffs.

Alabama has never missed back-to-back playoffs since the format was introduced in 2014. After failing to make it in 2022, the pressure is on for the 2023 season.

While there are many unknowns about this year’s roster, Nick Saban and his team are still expected to be in the mix late in the season. Athlon Sports’s Steven Lassan recently shared bowl game and College Football playoff projections, and the Tide get to compete for a national title.

Lassan has Alabama taking on Michigan in the Rose Bowl, while Georgia and USC battle it out in the Sugar Bowl.

Though Alabama makes the playoffs, Lassan has Michigan advancing to face Georgia in the national championship game.

Expectations for the 2023 season are somewhat mitigated, as the three-man race for the Crimson Tide starting quarterback job is ongoing and many key, impact players from last season’s roster will have to be replaced. Making the playoffs would certainly be considered a win given where the program is at in the offseason.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football as the 2023 college football season approaches.

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Way-too-early Alabama football bowl game prediction

According to the latest 2023 bowl game prediction, Alabama misses the College Football Playoff again… but why?

Alabama football has only missed the College Football Playoff twice since its inception in 2014 and has never missed it in consecutive seasons. The Crimson Tide finished 2022 ranked No. 5, just outside of the top-four teams to be invited to compete for a national championship. Now, the team looks to return in 2023.

Brad Crawford of 247Sports, however, believes Nick Saban’s program fails to make it in the upcoming season.

In Crawford’s latest, very early bowl game projections, No. 1 Georgia would play No. 4 Michigan in the Sugar Bowl and No. 2 Ohio State would face No. 3 Texas in the Rose Bowl. In the end, he believes it would be Georgia vs. Ohio State for the national title.

Alabama is left out of the playoffs and is projected to face Tulane in the Peach Bowl.

“The Crimson Tide could fail to get to the playoff, again, thanks to two regular-season losses,” writes Crawford. “And Nick Saban won’t be happy with the committee. Their reward? A possible matchup with the Group of Five champion. Think Tulane or Boise State in this spot. Michael Pratt’s back for the Green Wave, but that team did lose several key pieces from last year’s historical run under Willie Fritz. Alabama’s 2023 season could fall short of national title aspirations if the lingering quarterback situation isn’t solved with a difference-maker in place coming out of fall camp.”

This would be back-to-back New Year’s six bowl game appearances for Alabama after defeating Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl last season. For most programs, this would be a huge step in the right direction. In Tuscaloosa, however, this is a step back.

There are still a few months before the 2023 college football regular season gets underway, but many unanswered questions remain for the Crimson Tide. Most notably, who will be the starting quarterback and emerge as the go-to guy in the ongoing three-man competition?

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football as the offseason progresses.

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How did the SEC fare during the 2022 bowl season?

Florida got blown out in its bowl game, but the rest of the SEC did pretty well during the college football postseason.

Florida was embarrassed in a 30-3 Las Vegas Bowl loss by Oregon State on Dec. 17, but the Gators weren’t the only SEC team that finished the season with disappointment.

Four other programs in the conference came up short in the quest to win a bowl game: Missouri fell to Wake Forest by 10, Ole Miss couldn’t keep up with Texas Tech, Kentucky was shut out by Iowa and South Carolina lost to Notre Dame by a touchdown.

Of course, the conference saw its fair share of success during the month of December too. Georgia is once again competing for a national championship and is the favorite heading into the big game on Jan. 9 against TCU. The Bulldogs mounted a massive comeback against Ohio State on New Year’s Eve to stay on top of the college football world and are a win away from perhaps replacing Alabama as the bar for success at this level.

Alabama throttled Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl, Arkansas held out against Kansas in overtime, LSU ran it up against Purdue, Mississippi State handled Illinois and Tennessee got a big win over Clemson in the orangest of Orange Bowls.

Here’s a look at how every SEC team fared during the 2022 bowl season, in order of when each game happened.

Notre Dame-South Carolina: FIW Gator Bowl predictions

Predicting what sets up to be pretty much an entirely unpredictable game.

The 2022 football season comes to an end for Notre Dame this Friday as the Irish are set to battle South Carolina in the Gator Bowl. It’s Notre Dame’s fourth trip to the game all-time, their first since falling to a Phillip Rivers-led North Carolina State team at the end of Tyrone Willingham’s first season.

With the news of Sam Hartman’s seeming imminent arrival, all of the recruiting happenings and dramas of NIL and the transfer portal, it’s easy to sort of forget there is still a game to be played.

Will Notre Dame use it as a chance to develop for the future? Or will it be all hands on deck, upperclassmen included, to finish the year with a victory?

In a hard game to predict the strategy of, it’s even more difficult to predict the end result. However, the Fighting Irish Wire crew makes their best bets for Friday’s Gator Bowl here.

OPINION: Opt-outs strip the shine off bowl games but remain a net good

It’s easy to be frustrated by the diminishing importance of bowl games, but put yourself in the players’ shoes.

It wasn’t that long ago that bowl games were some of the best games to watch.

You’d get matchups between teams that would never play each other in the regular season. You’d get to watch some players play their last college game as they laid it all on the line one last time for their school.

Now, times have changed.

You still get the fun matchups and bowl games are still fairly enjoyable, but we don’t get to see some of the best players take on another team’s best players. With the transfer portal and opt-out rates at an all-time high, a bowl game feels like a mock spring game.

You get a chance to see the younger guys test their talent at the college level.

I mean this is no form of anger at the kids who do opt-out or transfer. A lot of them had to make a business decision. If you are a projected first-round draft pick and you play in your bowl game and tear your ACL, you would fall out of the first round and lose A LOT of money.

It’s a business decision for the betterment of their future. I understand that these kids have played for a school that has paid for their tuition, housing, and books. I understand the angry fans that say, “Those kids are walking out on their teammates.”

To each their own. From my point of view, some of these kids who opt-out to become early draft picks have to take a step back and look at how their decision would affect them in the long run. Some of these guys don’t come from happy homes or safe neighborhoods.

They have had to work their tail off for everything they’ve gotten in life. They had nights when they couldn’t eat cause their family didn’t have any money. Put yourself in their shoes.

A first-round pick gets signed for enough money to get their parents out of a rough situation. It could pay off debts that they have taken on over the years. It is a hard decision to make, but we should not hold any malice towards the kids that decide to choose what they think is best for them and their families.

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Mike Golic, Jr.: ‘Tommy Rees coached his *** off this year!’

Mike Golic and Mike Golic, Jr. joined Fighting Irish Wire to talk all things Notre Dame football. Check it out –

It’s been just over a year since [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] left for LSU and [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] was named the 30th head coach in the storied history of Notre Dame football. There have been ups, downs, and seemingly everything in-between these last 12 months as it was an 8-4 season that won’t soon be forgotten by any Notre Dame fan.

So how do you evaluate the year and the extreme highs coupled with a few of those lows that it brought? I’ve sat here and done that since September and not that I won’t continue to do so, but figured it’d be good to get a different couple of voices to share their thoughts.

Mike Golic and Mike Golic, Jr. both continue to work in the football media world and thanks to their partnership with Chili’s, were able to join me to discuss the state of Notre Dame football a year into the Freeman era. Here is what they had to say:

Which bowl game will the Florida Gators play in?

It’s almost bowl season, but which game will the Gators be playing in? Here’s what the experts are saying.

Now that the regular season has concluded, there is no shortage of predictions as to which bowl game the Florida Gators will take part in. UF secured bowl eligibility with its sixth win of the season over South Carolina but failed to pick up another win over the remaining two games in the season.

A 6-6 finish means that Florida is likely to play in a very minor bowl game, but plenty of host cities would relish the opportunity to market tickets to one of the larger fan bases in the country. It comes as no surprise then that the bowl game experts all have different takes on where the Gators will end up. Some have UF playing in a game close to home to capitalize on the nearby fans, and others have Florida playing as far west as Las Vegas.

Whichever game Florida does end up accepting an invitation to should be more competitive than the Gators’ 2021 loss against UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl. A lame-duck staff had all but cleared out and players were jumping ship left and right. Sure, [autotag]Anthony Richardson[/autotag], [autotag]O’Cyrus Torrence[/autotag] and [autotag]Ventrell Miller[/autotag] could sit out this year to preserve their draft stock and avoid injury, but there’s still plenty to prove for the younger players on the team that are fighting for a spot next season.

Here’s a look at which bowl games the experts think Florida will play in this year.

Two Gators projected to sit during bowl season by 247Sports

Players sitting out of bowl games to preserve their bodies for the NFL draft is a modern-day reality of college football. Here’s which Gators 247Sports thinks will sit.

The Florida Gators secured bowl eligibility with their win over the South Carolina Gamecocks two weeks ago, but the team might be without two of its best players when the postseason finally comes around. 247Sports took a shot at projecting which players are likely to sit out for their team’s bowl game, and for Florida, those names are quarterback [autotag]Anthony Richardson[/autotag] and guard [autotag]O’Cyrus Torrence[/autotag].

Both players have first-round potential, but Richardson lacks the experience Torrence has and could end up staying another year. Running back [autotag]Montrell Johnson Jr[/autotag]. has already begun openly recruiting Richardson to return for another year, but several NFL scouts and draft analysts believe his natural talent will override his lack of experience when the draft comes around. If Richardson has made up his mind, the Florida State game on Friday could be his last appearance in the Orange in Blue.

Torrence’s impending departure is much more of a sure thing. Pro Football Focus has graded him as the top guard in the country all year and he could be the first player at his position off the board. A First Team All-Sun Belt player a year ago, Torrence followed Billy Napier to the Swamp and has shined playing against SEC talent. If that’s not a stamp of approval for NFL scouts, it’s hard to say what is.

Losing both players might spell doom for the Gators come bowl season, but it’s the new reality of college football. When there’s money on the line, it’s smarter to stay healthy than play in a minor bowl game that could cost a player millions if something goes wrong.

Nothing is official yet and both men could end up playing in Florida’s bowl game when all is said and done, but no one would be surprised if they end up sitting.

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Which Alabama players could sit out of a bowl game if Tide misses CFP?

Which Crimson Tide stars may decide to sit out of a bowl game if Alabama misses the College Football Playoff?

Alabama’s two losses in the 2022 regular season with one game left to go have Crimson Tide fans frustrated and in a desperate search for answers. For just about any other program in the nation, the possibility of ending the year with a 10-2 record would be something straight out of a dream.

Though it’s not likely, Alabama still has a chance to make the College Football Playoff and compete for a national championship.

If the Crimson Tide misses out on the playoff, for only the second time since 2014, then the team will play in a featured bowl game.

Because the bowl game wouldn’t have championship implications, some players may elect to sit out to ensure their health to put themselves in the best possible position for the 2023 NFL draft.

Fans and media members may complain about players opting out of bowl games, but can we blame these players?

Let’s go back in time to earlier in 2022 when Jameson Williams tore his ACL in the national championship game against Georgia. The former Crimson Tide star receiver has still yet to play in an NFL game and only recently was allowed to return to practice.

Injuries can happen to anybody at any time regardless of the situation or context of the game. If there isn’t a championship on the line, should these players risk millions of dollars on an injury?

A recent article from 247Sports named key players from top programs across the country who could reasonably opt out of their team’s bowl game.

“The primary players to watch are Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr., but there are certainly others for the Crimson Tide — including Jordan Battle, Brian Branch, Malachi Moore and Jahmyr Gibbs — who may choose to sit for this team’s New Year’s Six appearance in favor of getting an early start on the 2023 NFL Draft. For elite projected first-rounders like Young and Anderson, the decision is becoming easier for players during the postseason who are not competing for a national championship.”

These players have been vital to Alabama’s success in recent seasons and key to flashes of brilliance on both sides of the ball in 2022. If the team misses the CFP, the Iron Bowl could be the last time any of these players take the field as a member of the Crimson Tide.

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