The 2022-23 Bowl Season Was Absolutely Electric

If you didn't enjoy this bowl season, you might want to check your pulse.

Share This Post

ThErE aRe WaY tOo MaNy BoWl GaMeS – sit down, nerd! This year’s bowl season was simply phenomenal. It was such good shit and it made for a fitting conclusion to the story of the 2022 season. I understand that it’s the hip, cool thing (people still say ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ right?) to do these days to comment on how many bowl games there are. I understand the old heads like to gripe about how all these teams get in – so many that a team with a losing record may even be invited to play in a bowl game. But, not me. I, for one, am here to celebrate and call attention to the absolute electric factory that this year’s bowl season was.

From the jump, I knew we were in store for a tremendous bowl season. It all kicked off with a fun little game called the Bahamas Bowl. It was 6-6 UAB….6-6 Miami (OH)…two teams that no one outside of those two fan bases really care about. But, they put on a thriller. Later that day, we had a defensive chess match, and a solid comeback from Troy against UTSA in the Cure Bowl, a game that could’ve been a de facto Group of Five Championship if not for the success of the Tulane Green Wave this season. The next day, Frank Gore Jr. went for 329 yards and two touchdowns as Southern Miss rocked Rice. Maybe the game wasn’t that good, but how could you not stop and appreciate such a performance? The New Mexico Bowl and the Frisco Bowl ended as one-point and three-point games respectively for a nightcap on Day 2 of the festivities.

MTSU drew up a touchdown to a defensive end in the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve. New Mexico State won the Quick Lane Bowl after having to get a waiver to even play in the postseason. Holton Ahlers broke the Birmingham Bowl touchdown record with five touchdown passes. North Carolina doinked an extra point to lose the Holiday Bowl to Oregon, 28-27. Arkansas jumped out to a 31-7 lead over Kansas in the Liberty Bowl before the Jayhawks came all the way back to score a touchdown and convert a two-point attempt to send it into overtime at 38-38 with 41 seconds left in the game. That game went into triple overtime before it ended 55-53 in favor of the Razorbacks. The Washington Huskies finished their season at 11-2 after a 27-20 win over Texas in the Alamo Bowl.

Florida State kicked a field goal with 55 seconds left in the game to outlast Oklahoma 35-32 in the Cheez-It Bowl. That capped off their surprising 2022 season with their sixth straight win, getting ’em to 10 on the year. Pittsburgh and UCLA put on a barn-burner in the Sun Bowl, which saw the Panthers win on a 47-yard field as time expired. Notre Dame beat South Carolina 45-38 in a Gator Bowl for the ages with both teams going back and forth in the second half.

We had two all-time classic College Football Playoff semi-finals, as TCU pulled off the astonishing upset in beating Michigan to get to the National Championship. Later that evening, Ohio State and Georgia went blow for blow before the Bulldogs pulled ahead 42-41 with 54 seconds left in the game. How could we have possibly topped that? Well, I hope you tuned in to the Cotton Bowl to see the Tulane Green Wave cap off an absolutely incredible 2022 campaign with a shocking win over the USC Trojans. Tulane was down by 15 with 4:30 left in the game, and they miraculously came back to score a safety and two touchdowns to win the game 46-45 in an instant classic.

I’m tired of folks calling these games meaningless. They mean an awful lot to the coaches, players, and programs participating in them. And, they mean an awful lot to the real fans of the game. The National Championship may have been a dud, but don’t let that cloud how truly electric this bowl season was. There were way more fun, exciting bowl games than there were bad ones. Take me back to the days when Cheez-Its ruled the world, and we were dumping mayonnaise on coaches. Hell – bring on more! Why stop now?

If you haven’t already, subscribe to the College Football Roundup on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Spotify, or wherever you take in your podcasts. 

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

Subscribe to the SoBros Network Patreon here – $5/month gets you instant access to an exhaustive content library of articles, podcasts, and videos created exclusively for our subscribers!

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Get updates and learn from the best

More To Explore