Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Here’s who will be garnering the attention of NFL scouts from Dec. 18 through the 22nd.
‘Tis the season for college football bowl games.
Throughout the next couple of weeks, I’ll be highlighting a prospect from each bowl game, starting from the Famous Toastery Bowl all the way to the Sugar Bowl.
Here’s who will be garnering the attention of NFL scouts from Dec. 18 through the 22nd.
Another sports publication projects the Florida Gators booking a trip to the Gasparilla Bowl.
USA TODAY Sports released the latest edition of its bowl game projections after the conclusion of Week 4.
The crystal ball was studied and the Gasparilla Bowl is still in the Florida Gators’ future. The department at CBS Sports also predicted a trip to Tampa and matched the Gators with South Alabama.
According to USA TODAY Sports’ Erick Smith, the Florida Gators will be facing off against the Tulane Green Wave, who currently stand tall at 4-0. The Green Wave has taken down South Alabama, Ole Miss, Southern Miss and Nicholls State so far.
The Gasparilla Bowl will be played on Dec. 22 and the invitations are sent to teams representing the SEC, ACC, and American Conference.
Florida is on a three-game win streak and will hit the road for the second time this season as they visit the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday. The kickoff is slated for noon EDT and will air on ESPN.
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CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm predicts the Florida Gators will go Bowling in December.
The Florida Gators toppled the No. 20 Tennessee Volunteers, 29-16, at home last Saturday night, launching their stock for a bowl game trip in the 2023 postseason.
CBS Sports released a College Football Bowl Prediction list Monday and bowl expert Jerry Palm is booking the Gators to take another trip to the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa Bay.
Palm also predicts Florida’s opponent will be South Alabama (2-1), who just toppled Oklahoma State on the road, 33-7.
Palm also listed his top-four teams who will make the College Football Playoff, predicting Georgia to finish at No. 1, Michigan at No. 2, Texas at No. 3 and Florida State making the cut at No. 4.
Trailing behind at Nos. 5 and 6 are the Ohio State Buckeyes and USC Trojans, respectively, who would appear in a New Year’s Six bowl game.
The Florida Gators cracked the AP top 25 poll this week to slap the No. 25 next to their name and will look to keep the undefeated streak alive against the Charlotte 49ers on Saturday at home. The Game will kick off at 7 p.m. EDT and broadcast on ESPN+.
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Part 1 of our picks for all 43 bowl games.
Bowl season is officially upon us, and there is something for everybody. In fact, some might say there are too many bowls — or so many that most end up being just exhibitions.
I’m not going to sit here and disagree. But if you can’t find something to enjoy from any of these games, college football just might not be your thing.
An alternative way to get invested is through a little betting action. And because most people don’t have time to research 43 different games, I did it for you.
Starting with every bowl before Christmas, these are my best bets for each game. Check back later for the remaining bowls.
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Is there a Mayo dumping in Marcus Freeman’s future?
Where will Notre Dame be headed this postseason? It seems like the answer to that question is one of two places. Either out west to take on a Pac-12 opponent in a bowl game the Irish have never participated in before, or to Jacksonville to take on an SEC foe in a game Notre Dame hasn’t played in since the conclusion of Tyrone Willingham’s first season as head coach.
However, there are a couple of others to put into the mix and one or two that we’ll file under the category of “I’ll have what he’s having”. Check out the latest bowl projections for Notre Dame from the national prognosticators below.
Like it or not, UCF was the best team in the state last season and the Gators need to have a better mentality in 2022 to reclaim the throne.
Florida football was a disaster around the 2021 bowl season, but that doesn’t change the fact that the UCF Knights beat the Gators, 29-17, in the Gasparilla Bowl. At the time, UCF fans, players and coaches reasoned that the team had won an unofficial state championship following Florida’s season-closing win over Florida State and FSU’s victory over Miami earlier in the year.
On Monday, the Knights got the hardware to back up the claim. Each player received their own Gasparilla Bowl ring complete with a “#1” over the state of Florida on the side. It’s hard to imagine that the design was intended for anything but ruffling the feathers of the state’s elite.
Most college football fans in Florida know how this goes by now. It’s not the first time UCF has claimed a championship, and the fallout is expected. What fallout? Check the comments under any social media post involving the rings. They are guaranteed to be a steady mixture of Knight Nation poking the bear and Florida, FSU and Miami fans clinging to what used to be a clear three-horse race.
That conversation alone has helped the Knights surge in popularity throughout the state, but this stunt could end up helping the Gators.
Best team in Florida 🌴💍 pic.twitter.com/rN817PLUX7
— UCF Football (@UCF_Football) April 18, 2022
Many have pointed out that Florida was a .500 team without a coach going into the Gasparilla Bowl. While true, it’s not a strong argument against UCF being the best team in the state. [autotag]Dan Mullen[/autotag]’s presence is what got the Gators to 6-6 and [autotag]Greg Knox[/autotag] was already the interim coach by the time Florida beat FSU. Delaying the coaching change wouldn’t have made a difference, but having [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag] at the helm should.
Napier has said from day one that he needed to change the culture at Florida to create a strong foundation for success in Gainesville. That culture shift seems to be coming along nicely based on early glimpses of the team during spring practices.
Mullen’s Gators didn’t lack pride, but they didn’t carry themselves like the dominant force in the state that should be regularly competing for national championships either (see 2020 LSU game). They’d likely shrug off the Knights’ rings and take little responsibility for the loss that allowed Gus Malzahn to place the order. That’s just the mentality the program was in under that staff.
Under Napier, the team should take it personally. The old Gators let that happen, but this version won’t. Let the Knights flash their rings and use it as motivation to not be in the Gasparilla Bowl, or its equivalent, next year.
UCF’s rings are valid. FSU made state championship rings following the 2015 season that ended in a Peach Bowl loss to Houston and Florida had some “SEC East Champions” rings made following a win over Iowa in the 2017 Outback Bowl. Are those also meaningless or “well-deserved,” as [autotag]Jim McElwain[/autotag] said at the time?
The Gators lost, and any fans trying to discredit the best-in-the-state claim by saying “the state was weak” are saying more about their favorite team than the Knights. Let this be fuel for a rivalry that’s only going to continue to grow as UCF joins the Big 12 as soon as 2023. By the time the Knights arrive in Gainesville for a game in 2024, it could be an unquestioned battle for the state with FSU still on the schedule as well.
Until then, the Gators’ goal should be to make sure that they aren’t in a position to play UCF in a bowl game at the end of the year unless it’s in the College Football Playoff.
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The projection has Auburn facing off against Virginia in a lower-tier bowl.
The 2022 season hasn’t even started, but it’s never too early for bowl predictions.
In 247Sports’ latest bowl predictions ahead of spring camp, Auburn is slated to go to the Gasparilla Bowl to play the Virginia Cavaliers in Tampa Bay. Auburn made and lost the Birmingham Bowl to Houston in 2021 and Virginia was set to play SMU in the Fenway Bowl before the game was canceled due to COVID-19.
Despite picking Auburn for the bowl, the list didn’t seem too confident in Auburn or Virginia’s ability to ensure its bowl eligibility.
“Will either of these teams get to six wins this season? That’s tough to answer at this point. Auburn is a bit of an unknown heading into Bryan Harsin’s second season after the 2021 campaign ended in a losing streak and was followed by a tumultuous multi-month period of uncertainty. Virginia and first-year coach Tony Elliott are led by quarterback Brennan Armstrong, who is one of the nation’s most underrated players.”
Auburn finished last year with a 6-7 record in its first year under [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag], losing to the No. 20 Houston Cougars in the Birmingham Bowl. Following a tumultuous offseason where many believed Harsin could be on his way out, the Tigers retained him for the 2022 season. It would certainly be a disappointment for the Tigers to make a lower-tier bowl like the Gasparilla Bowl following last season.
Virginia, meanwhile, suffered a similar season, only winning six games. The bowl they were looking to play in was canceled, however, so the Cavaliers will hope to bounce back after finishing the season ranked and making a New Year’s Six bowl just two years ago.
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Well done, Florida and UCF fans! The Gasparilla Bowl was one of the most-watched bowl games so far.
Florida’s loss to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl drew 3,201,000 average viewers on Thursday night, according to ShowBuzzDaily.
The Gasparilla Bowl was the second-highest viewed bowl game of the season up to that point, but the more major bowl games are likely to knock it down a few spots. Still, the number is a good sign for regional matchups in lower and middle-tier bowl games.
Perhaps even more impressive than the average viewership is earning a .66 in the 18-49 demographic (this is the target age group for most ads). It gives the Gasparilla Bowl the outright lead over the Independence Bowl (.60), which featured No. 13 BYU against UAB. An upset over a top-15 team may have drawn 20,000 more viewers on average, but Florida-UCF outperformed that game in every major television statistic.
Live sports is one of the last pieces of programming that seems to be “DVR-proof” and it’s the reason networks pay ungodly sums of money to keep the rights to air events like bowl games. It’s no secret that UCF and Florida fans looked at this game as the unofficial state championship matchup. That hype led to viewers and it may be something that minor bowls aim to recreate around the country. It’s not an original idea, but the numbers speak for themselves on this one.
UCF is one of the largest universities in the country with a growing fanbase. Its football program is quite young and so are its fans, at least compared to more established programs like Florida. Although it’s speculative, Knight Nation likely helped boost the numbers in the younger demographics.
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How big of a threat is UCF to Florida after the Gasparilla Bowl?
Florida’s 29-17 loss to UCF at the Gasparilla Bowl felt a lot like what I said could happen if the Gators didn’t take the Knights seriously.
The Knights are now the best team in Florida after beating the team that took down FSU, FAU and USF this year, and there isn’t a chance that the UCF fandom forgets about this game until at least 2024. It doesn’t sound like UCF coach Gus Malzahn will be forgetting about the win either when it comes time to recruit kids from the state.
“Yeah, this is just the beginning,” Malzahn said to ESPN’s Taylor Davis after the game. “I really believe it. We got big dreams. We got big goals. We can win the whole thing here and I think tonight was just the first step. Recruiting is going to go really well, man.”
This is why I said Florida needs to take UCF seriously moving forward. The Knights get those bragging rights for another two years, and Florida isn’t in the best place right now despite Billy Napier‘s early efforts. That could all change with some more great recruiting and a win in a few years, but both teams will be Power Five programs by then and it will be a totally different kind of rivalry.
The Gasparilla Bowl was the last chance for Florida to pick on little brother and the team came up short. Even worse, they may have jumpstarted UCF for next year and beyond.
Napier will have a lot to address at Florida in his first few years, but the first thing he needs to make sure of is that the team is consistent and disciplined in what they do on the field. The Gators had the talent to win on Thursday, but a sloppy second half led to the lead slipping and a loss.
A post-game brawl proved how much the game meant to both teams, but it might have taken a close half of football for everyone in Gator Nation to get on board. I expect the 2024 showdown in the Swamp to have even more energy, similar to what we would see against FSU.
Like it or not, UCF is here to stay and Florida officially has a new in-state rival to worry about. If Malzahn continues what he’s doing at UCF and Napier manages to whip the Gators back into form, we should be in for some great matchups down the road (just hopefully not in the Gasparilla Bowl again).
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Things got chippy after Florida’s 29-17 loss to the Knights.
An ugly conclusion to the season for the Gators in the Gasparilla Bowl got even uglier when the clock hit zeroes on Thursday night. Following a frustrating performance in a 29-17 loss to UCF, a minor brawl began to break out after the game between both sides.
It was a somewhat surprisingly emotional game, and it was chippy long before things boiled over at the end. The Knights earned their first win ever over the Gators, while UF suffered its first loss to a non-Florida State or Miami in-state team for the first time since a loss to Stetson in 1938.
In a video posted by the Orlando Sentinel’s Jason Beede, you can see several Florida players grabbing at the helmet of UCF linebacker Tatum Bethune in the middle of the brawl.
Things got heated on the field between #UCF and Florida after the Gasparilla Bowl… pic.twitter.com/mNMn7SP5aB
— Jason Beede (@therealBeede) December 24, 2021
Luckily, the coaches were able to get the teams separated fairly quickly, and it didn’t devolve into anything worse. It’s been a frustrating season for a Gators team that began the year with SEC East division title hopes, at the very least. Instead, Florida had its third losing season since 2013 and fired coach Dan Mullen after an overtime loss to Missouri in November. It’s only fitting that the season would end on a rather ugly note.
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