Where does Alabama vs. Michigan rank among the best/worst matchups of bowl season?
Neither the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Michigan Wolverines had the types of seasons they wanted in 2024.
Alabama (9-3 overall) lost three games, which was one too many to keep them out of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Michigan (7-5) won the national championship a year ago while going 15-0 but was never in contention to repeat as champions this season.
This year’s ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly the Outback Bowl) matchup between the Crimson Tide and the Wolverines won’t have near the amount of stakes as last season’s Rose Bowl, a playoff semifinal game that Michigan won 27-20 in overtime.
But it’s still Alabama vs. Michigan, and college football blue bloods like the Tide and Wolverines carry a lot of weight. That’s particularly true for bowl games that aren’t normally accustomed to having two historical powerhouses play in lower-tier postseason events.
USA TODAY Sports recently ranked all 35 non-playoff bowl games for the 2024 season from best to worst. Alabama-Michigan ranked in the top 10 at No. 7, one spot behind the Music City Bowl matchup between the Missouri Tigers and Iowa Hawkeyes.
Eddie Timanus of USA TODAY Sports explained his ranking for Alabama vs. Michigan this way:
“One might expect a rematch of a playoff game from a year ago to be higher on the list, though clearly a lot has changed at both programs since. The Wolverines’ decline was more precipitous than the Crimson Tide’s ebb, but both teams own victories against playoff teams, so clearly there is still enough roster talent to give us a quality contest.”
On that note, Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe and linebacker Jihaad Campbell announced last Thursday that they intended to play in the ReliaQeust Bowl. Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer had said earlier in the week that he didn’t expect many Alabama players to opt out for the game.
“I feel like right now we’re at a place where most of those guys are planning on playing,” DeBoer had told reporters.
Alabama and Michigan are scheduled to kick off at 11 a.m. CT on Dec. 31 from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. The game will be televised on ESPN. The Crimson Tide are ranked No. 11 in both the US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Top 25. Michigan is unranked.
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Here’s who the Alabama Crimson Tide will play in their 2024 bowl game.
The Alabama Crimson Tide have learned their destination and opponent for the 2024 college football bowl season.
Alabama will face the Michigan Wolverines in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Dec. 31 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. CT. The game will be televised on ESPN.
The ReliaQuest Bowl confirmed the news Sunday. The event was previously known as the Outback Bowl from 1995-2022.
The Crimson Tide and Wolverines met in the College Football Playoff at the Rose Bowl last season on Jan. 1, 2024. Michigan won, 27-20, in overtime en route to winning the national championship a week later over the Washington Huskies, then coached by Kalen DeBoer.
Alabama and Michigan look a lot different this year.
Both coaches from last season’s Rose Bowl are no longer with their respective teams. Nick Saban announced his retirement on Jan. 10. Former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh left Ann Arbor to return to the NFL and a head coaching job with the Los Angeles Chargers. DeBoer was announced as Alabama’s head coach on Jan. 12.
Neither Alabama or Michigan will be playing for much more than bragging rights and the hope of finishing a disappointing season on a high note when they meet in Tampa.
Alabama went 9-3 in the regular season and had hoped to sneak in to the 12-team College Football Playoff. Instead, the selection committee chose the SMU Mustangs over Alabama Sunday.
Michigan is 7-5 under first-year coach Sherrone Moore but scored a thrilling 13-10 upset win over the Ohio State Buckeyes in “The Game” to close its regular season. Alabama closed its regular season with a 28-14 win over the Auburn Tigers in the Iron Bowl.
Alabama and Michigan have met six times on the gridiron, five of them in the postseason. The all-time head to head series is tied 3-3.
The 2024 ReliaQuest Bowl will mark Alabama’s first appearance in this annual postseason event since New Year’s Day 1997. That day, the Crimson Tide also played Michigan and won 17-14 in Gene Stallings’ final game as Alabama’s head coach.
The wait is over! 🎉 This year’s ReliaQuest Bowl is bringing Michigan and Alabama to Tampa for an epic SEC vs. Big Ten showdown. 🏈 pic.twitter.com/D6JOYUgTO9
UNC (6-6, 3-5 ACC) started its campaign 3-0, then lost four straight, including a 70-50 shocker against James Madison. North Carolina then rebounded to win three straight, capping its streak with a bowl-clinching victory against Wake Forest.
On Sunday, Dec. 8, the Tar Heels learned their bowl game – and opponent. UNC will ship up to Boston for an 11 a.m. kickoff on Saturday, Dec. 28 to face the UConn Huskies in the Fenway Bowl.
North Carolina and UConn will face off in the famed Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox.
UConn (8-4), previously a member of the American Athletic Conference, now plays as an FBS independent.
North Carolina, which is playing in a bowl game for the sixth-consecutive season, will make its first appearance in the Fenway Bowl. Last year’s edition of the Fenway Bowl featured two fellow ACC schools: Boston College and SMU, the latter of whom is in the College Football Playoff.
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The Tar Heels will look to snap a 4-game losing streak in bowl games, while UConn is playing in a bowl game for the second time in three seasons. The Huskies’ bowl fortunates are even worse than UNC’s: UConn hasn’t won one since 2009, when it beat South Carolina in the PapaJohns.com bowl.
North Carolina will be playing postseason football under the guidance of tight ends coach/run game coordinator Freddie Kitchens, who was named the interim head coach less than a week about Brown’s firing.
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Is Alabama in or out? A look at the experts’ latest College Football Playoff projections for the Alabama Crimson Tide heading into Championship Saturday.
The regular season is over. All the Alabama Crimson Tide and coach Kalen DeBoer can do now is wait to learn their postseason fate.
Alabama (9-3 overall, 5-3 SEC) made one last impression on the selection committee with a 28-14 victory over rival Auburn in the Iron Bowl on Saturday. The Crimson Tide overcame four turnovers, and Jalen Milroe was much improved from his performance against the Oklahoma Sooners a week earlier in a 24-3 loss that may still prove fatal to Alabama’s College Football Playoff hopes.
Milroe was 18-of-24 for 256 yards through the air, with 104 yards and three touchdowns on the ground on 17 carries. Alabama led 28-6 until late in the third quarter when Auburn drove 87 yards on 10 plays and got a 29-yard Payton Thorne touchdown to Cam Coleman.
Is Alabama’s resume enough to get the Crimson Tide into the Playoff with three losses over teams like the Miami Hurricanes (9-2)? That’s what college football experts are debating after the final week of the regular season in the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12.
Heading into Championship Saturday, here’s what national college football writers and others in the sport’s media universe are saying about Alabama’s College Football Playoff and bowl game fate/projections — and which teams the Crimson Tide might face.
Alabama football’s updated CFP, bowl game projections after regular season
Alabama at Notre Dame (CFP first-round game, Dec. 20 or 21)
Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Alabama vs. Notre Dame is the most common projection among the experts’ CFP predictions. USA TODAY Sports analyst Erick Smith sees the Crimson Tide getting the final at-large berth in the playoff and making a trip to South Bend to face the Fighting Irish in a No. 12 seed vs. No. 5 seed matchup.
Smith writes:
“(T)he SEC gets its fourth team in the field with three-loss Alabama edging South Carolina on the basis of the head-to-head result between the schools.”
Alabama defeated South Carolina, 27-25, on Oct. 12 in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide haven’t visited South Bend since the 1987 college football season. The two teams have met twice in the postseason since then, including Alabama’s 42-14 romp of Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship on Jan. 7, 2013 in Miami.
Smith is far from the only one who sees Alabama taking on Notre Dame in a first-round playoff game. Another USA TODAY Sports expert, Austin Curtright, has the Crimson Tide and Fighting Irish squaring off in South Bend, as does ESPN’s Mark Schlabach.
“Ultimately, I believe the committee will take 9-3 Alabama over 10-2 Miami and 9-3 South Carolina because the Tide have played a much tougher schedule and have more Top 25 wins than Miami. Plus, they own the head-to-head tiebreaker edge over South Carolina.”
On3’s Andy Staples sees Alabama facing Notre Dame, as well.
Staples writes:
“Of the teams vying for this spot, South Carolina is probably the one no one wants to see in the bracket. But the head-to-head losses to Alabama and Ole Miss seem prohibitive. Perhaps the committee will surprise us, but it seems to value power rankings like ESPN’s FPI, the Sagarin ratings and the Massey Ratings… All of those have Alabama ahead of the other teams in this group. The committee had Alabama one spot ahead of Ole Miss last week, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything is written in stone.”
Alabama at Penn State (CFP first-round game, Dec. 20 or 21)
Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
247Sports analyst Brad Crawford also projects Alabama to make the final 12-team field. But instead of a trip to South Bend, Crawford sees the Crimson Tide taking on the Penn State Nittany Lions in a No. 11 seed vs. No. 6 seed playoff game in Happy Valley.
From there, Crawford sees Alabama beating Penn State, then beating his projected ACC champion, the SMU Mustangs, in the Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to set up a showdown between the Crimson Tide and Texas Longhorns in the CFP semifinals at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
The Sporting News’ Bill Bender agrees with the Alabama-Penn State projection. Alabama last played at Beaver Stadium on Sept. 10, 2011, a 27-11 Crimson Tide victory in Week 2 of the season.
Alabama at Texas (CFP first-round game, Dec. 20 or 21)
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Sports Illustrated’s Nick Shepkowski sees Alabama making the playoff and facing Texas in Austin. A Tide-Longhorns matchup would be the third in as many years. Alabama won at Texas, 20-19, on a 33-yard Will Reichard game-winning field goal with 10 seconds left on Sept. 10, 2022. They lost, 34-24, to former Nick Saban assistant Steve Sarkisian in September 2023 at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Is Citrus Bowl Alabama football’s most realistic postseason destination?
Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
Not everyone is sold on Alabama reaching the College Football Playoff after Week 14’s chaos. CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm projects the Miami Hurricanes to get the committee’s final at-large berth and face No. 5 seed Texas in the first round of the playoff.
Palm has Alabama in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando against Bret Beliema and the Illinois Fighting Illini on New Year’s Eve. Alabama last played in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day 2020, defeating Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines, 35-16.
A look at the experts’ latest bowl game projections for Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers.
Entering Week 13 of the 2024 college football season, it can be somewhat hard to project where Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers will spend bowl season in December/January.
On the one hand, Clemson (up to No. 17 in the latest CFP rankings) still has a chance, however slim, to reach the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte on Dec. 7. Doing so would guarantee the Tigers of at least a shot at reaching the College Football Playoff.
And if the Tigers win the ACC title game and get to 11-2 overall, they’d get a first-round bye and play in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta against the winner of the No. 6 vs. No. 11 seed game.
More realistically? The Miami Hurricanes and SMU Mustangs, the two teams on course to get to Charlotte, probably aren’t losing their final regular season games in conference play.
Cam Ward and the Hurricanes close out the year with a home game against Wake Forest this Saturday before hitting the road to play Syracuse, while Rhett Lashlee’s Mustangs have conference games against Virginia and California to close the regular season.
Heading into Week 13, here’s what national college football writers and others in the sport’s media universe are saying about Clemson’s bowl game projections — and which teams they might face.
Clemson Football’s Latest Bowl Projections
Pop-Tarts Bowl (Orlando, Fla., Dec. 28)
Jeremy Reper-USA TODAY Sports
USA TODAY Sports analyst Erick Smith sees the Tigers making a trip to Orlando to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. The only difference in Smith’s projection from last week is who the Tigers will face. With the BYU Cougars falling 17-13 to the Kansas Jayhawks in Week 12, BYU replaces Iowa State as Smith’s Big 12 representative.
This matchup would be a first, as Clemson and BYU have never met on the football field. The Pop-Tarts Bowl has been known by several names, the longest being the Champs Sports Bowl (2004-11). Some fans will recall its original name — the Blockbuster Bowl (1990-93).
Duke’s Mayo Bowl (Charlotte, N.C., Jan. 3, 2025)
Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports
CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm still sees Clemson in a bowl that’s a lot closer to the Upstate: the Duke’s Mayo Bowl at Bank of America Stadium to kick off 2025. Palm has the Tigers facing the Big Ten’s Minnesota Golden Gophers. Minnesota sits at 6-4 and has upset wins over the USC Trojans and Illinois Fighting Illini this season.
The Tigers and Gophers have met once before — in the 1985 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., a 20-13 Minnesota win.
The Sporting News’ Bill Bender agrees with the Duke’s Mayo Bowl projection and has Clemson in that game against Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes. As with Minnesota, Clemson and Iowa have never met in a head-to-head contest.
Holiday Bowl (San Diego, Calif., Dec. 27)
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
This has been a pretty common bowl game projection for the Tigers since their stunning 33-21 loss to Louisville on Nov. 2.
ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura has Clemson in the Holiday Bowl against Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes. Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and the Buffaloes still have a path to the College Football Playoff (as do the Tigers, no matter how narrow), so this projection could change for both teams in the coming weeks.
“Clemson’s comeback win at Pitt kept Clemson alive in the ACC race, but this looks like Miami or SMU’s league to win. Arizona State’s upset of Kansas State means the Sun Devils are streaking and have a chance to really toss a wrench in the Big 12 picture the rest of the way.”
Veteran college football reporter Brett McMurphy also sees Clemson in the Holiday Bowl, only against Arizona State.
ReliaQuest Bowl (Tampa, Fla., Dec. 31)
Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports
Sports Illustrated’s Patrick Andres sees Clemson in the Sunshine State on New Year’s Eve in the game formerly known as the Outback Bowl. Andres forecasts Clemson to be playing an SEC team in Tampa: Diego Pavia and the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Interestingly, Clemson and Vanderbilt have met four times previously, but none have been in the past 60-plus years. The two programs last played in 1960, a 22-20 Commodores win in Nashville. Vanderbilt leads the all-time series vs. the Tigers, 3-1.
Clemson has played in this bowl only once before, on New Year’s Day 1991 when it was called the Hall of Fame Bowl. In that game, coach Ken Hatfield’s Tigers blanked Illinois, 30-0, in a nationally televised contest on NBC to finish the season 10-2 overall and No. 9 in the final Coaches Poll.
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CBS Sports thinks OU could miss the postseason entirely for the first time since 1998.
The Oklahoma Sooners will take on the Ole Miss Rebels on Saturday, looking to break a two game losing streak and get back in the win column.
It’s also an important game for OU’s postseason hopes, as at 4-3 the Sooners are suddenly in grave danger of missing a bowl game. They’ve got to find two more wins on their schedule in order to get to 6-6, otherwise, they’ll miss the postseason for the first time since 1998.
CBS Sports college football witter Will Backus released his Bowl Eligibility Heat Check on Friday as we head into week nine of the college football season. Plenty of big names are in danger of missing a bowl game, and Oklahoma was, of course, included in Backus’ piece.
“No one necessarily expected Oklahoma to hit the ground running when it arrived in the SEC, but it was also hard to anticipate that the Sooners would be mentioned in the same breath as the Mississippi States of the conference (no offense to Mississippi State, at least the Bulldogs know how to actually score the football),” Backus said. “Oklahoma’s offense has been such a disaster that the Sooners let offensive coordinator Seth Littrell go just seven games into his tenure as a full-time assistant. [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] certainly hit the nail on the head when he called the offense an “abomination” — Oklahoma scored a combined 12 points in its last two losses to Texas and South Carolina. Traditionally, being two wins away from a bowl is a decent spot to be in one week out from November. But then you look at Oklahoma’s schedule, which features one game that it should win and four that — if recent results are any indication — it would be lucky to compete in.”
Of course, those four games where OU will be huge underdogs are Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama, and LSU. It’s not that the Sooners couldn’t beat those teams if they played like they were expected to when the season began. No one has any faith in the offense right now to do anything useful or helpful to win football games.
A home game against Maine, out of the FCS, should be one of the two wins that the Sooners need, but Oklahoma is going to have to pull off a major upset somewhere along the line if they want to play in a bowl game. It’s an unfamiliar spot for this proud program, to say the least.
Venables’ team will have four chances to do so, beginning in Oxford, Mississippi, at 11:00 a.m. on ESPN against the Rebels.
Veteran college sports prognosticator Jerry Palm projects where Clemson football will spend its postseason.
The Clemson football team will be playing in Charlotte this year, CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm believes.
It just won’t be in the ACC Championship Game, at least in Palm’s view. He projects the Tigers’ final destination of the season to be in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, set for Jan. 3 at Bank of America Stadium.
Widely known for his work as CBS Sports’ residential college hoops bracketologist, Palm released his bowl projections for the 2024 season on Thursday. Despite offering no analysis of why he feels the Tigers are bound for a fun but ultimately second-tier bowl game, Palm has Clemson squaring off against Rutgers in Charlotte.
Palm projects Florida State to make the inaugural 12-team playoff as the ACC champion and No. 4 seed. He also sees Georgia as the No. 1 overall seed with Ohio State the No. 2 seed and Utah the No. 3 seed.
Here’s hoping Dabo Swinney won’t be getting a celebratory bucket of mayonnaise dumped on his head come January — not even if the losing coach this year gets two buckets.
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Brad Crawford sees the Tigers playing in the Pop Tarts Bowl.
The Clemson football team has made numerous postseason trips to Orlando over the years.
The Tigers have appeared in bowl games in the city no less than seven times, with three appearances coming in the Citrus Bowl (typically played on New Year’s Day) and four in the city’s second bowl game.
Orlando’s “other bowl” is now in its second season as the Pop Tarts Bowl. It was initially dubbed the Blockbuster Bowl in the early 90s before taking on a host of other names such as the CarQuest Bowl, MicronPC Bowl, Champs Sports Bowl, Russell Athletic Bowl and Cheez-It Bowl.
And according to 247Sports’ Brad Crawford, it’s the Pop Tarts Bowl that Clemson will be playing in by the end of the year. Crawford made his bowl projections for the 2024 college football season earlier this week and sees the Tigers missing the 12-team College Football Playoff and facing Utah at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium.
Crawford opines:
“The Utes and Tigers have never met on the gridiron, so needless to say this would be one of the bowl season’s most-anticipated matchups outside of the College Football Playoff. It would also mean organizers in Orlando lobbied for both selections, high-end finishers in the Big 12 and ACC not quite good enough to be voted in the playoff. Utah is one of the trendy picks to win the Big 12, but few are taking Clemson to unseat Florida State at the top of the ACC.”
That last sentence is a bit debatable. The Sporting News’ Bill Bender recently projected Clemson to meet Alabama in the first round of the College Football Playoff, setting the stage for a Tigers vs. Tide “Round V” matchup. The two programs met four consecutive years in the four-team Playoff between 2015-2018.
Kansas State defeated NC State in last year’s Pop Tarts Bowl, 28-19. Clemson earned a trip to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville after its 8-4 regular season. The Tigers defeated Kentucky, 38-35, after scoring 28 points in the fourth quarter to erase a 21-10 deficit.
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If you’re any kind of college sports fan you’re familiar with the song “One Shining Moment” that is played each year as college basketball’s national championship game concludes. It’s cheesy but enjoyable as it recaps all the highs and lows of the NCAA Tournament in roughly three minutes.
What if college football had a similar type thing for bowl season?
Well ask and you shall receive.
Thanks to college football fan Nathan Grella we now have exactly that.
Grella put together highlights from the last few weeks of bowl games and set it to “One Shining Moment”. Sure, the lyrics don’t fit quite right when the song is about basketball and we’re watching football bowl games but Nathan hit it out of the park regardless.
Texas A&M will close out the TaxAct Texas Bowl festivities with a Wednesday night showdown against the No 20 Oklahoma State Cowboys
Texas A&M (7-5, 4-4 SEC) will play No. 20 Oklahoma State (9-4, 7-2 SEC) at NRG Stadium on Wednesday night in Houston, Texas at 8:00 p.m. CT.
The Aggies will play in a bowl game for the first time since 2020 and they will have their work cut out for them. On top of starting their third-string Quarterback, Jaylon Henderson, the starting lineup will resemble something similar to the second half of a spring scrimmage game. Due to transfers, the NFL draft, and injuries the Aggies are truly piecing together a squad to take one Oklahoma State on Wednesday night.
Now there is nothing new about an interim coach taking over for a bowl game however not only is this a lame-duck coaching staff, but coach Elijah Robinson has also spent half his time recruiting future Aggie targets for his new employee: Syracuse University.
This is still a good opportunity for new head coach Mike Elko to assess the current roster and determine where he might need to focus more of his attention in the transfer portal. It will also be the final chapter of the Jimbo era at Texas A&M and we can all finally move on.
