Well, sort of. The CFP rages on, but for the crowd that believes the new format ruins college football and bowl games, unfortunately Mickey has some news for you:
Notably, the Pop Tarts Bowl had the highest non-CFP viewership, even without Notre Dame. Notre Dame averages roughly 3.3 million viewers per game in 2025, only exceeding the 8.7 million viewers for the BYU-Tech tilt when the Irish played Miami (roughly 10 million viewers).
On the other hand, I’m seeing that the opening round of the CFP drew anywhere between 7 to 12 percent less viewers, which some are (in my opinion) incorrectly attributing to Notre Dame’s exclusion…but it’s also likely that the games weren’t an interesting draw anyway, with two rematches and all of them being blowouts, except for Miami-TAMU.
I watched the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and held on to some hope that Mississippi Staye would pull the win, but it wasn’t meant to be. All in all, I have to say there were quite a number of good ones, which I’d say were:
- The Hawaii Bowl – Hawaii walls it off against Cal with their backup quarterback throwing a touchdown pass
- The Sugar Bowl (only second because we lost, but admittedly it was high drama on New Year’s Day)
- The Alamo Bowl – TCU wins it in overtime with their backup quarterback because their starter hit the portal.
- The Pop Tart Bowl – Tech lost. Plus a good game.
- The Frosted Flakes Bowl – Over 700 yards passing and nonstop scoring giving Duke the 42-39 win.
Who seems to be winning the Bowl Season? While the conventional wisdom would be to say the B1G, based on record, I would say it’s the face-saving effort of the ACC, going 9-4 and having Miami advance to the semifinals. For a conference that looked to get potentially locked out of the CGP altogether, the ACC has stepped up (except you, Clemson and Georgia Tech) and made the most of a potential PR disaster of a year.
With Bowl Season being nearly over, what’re your thoughts? Did you like them? Hate them? Do away with the whole thing and start over? What was your favorite Bowl Game?
And rightfully so unfortunately. Love my Dawgs but the “new era” is not gonna be fixed.
My favorite was the Illini beating the Vols!!
My hope is that Kirby continues to keep us out of the bowl system.
I said I wasn’t going to watch most bowls for a general lack of interest but found myself watching more than I expected out of sheer boredom because I was at a family members house with nothing better to do. Perhaps others were in my same boat and it’s possible television executives knew this. All they had to compete with was a walk around the neighborhood and Hallmark movies. I do wish the SEC would have been more competitive in the bowls though. That’s going to hurt our reputation. Off to Athens today to watch the Hoop Dawgs play! Gooooooooo Dawgs!!!
Hard to get excited about teams out of the top 16 going forward especially with all the opt-outs. Disney, however, is thrilled to get 2-3 million viewers in those time slots and gamblers love having anything to bet on. CFB is very ill but being ignored because it’s generating $$$$. Most of the immediate “fixes” will make it worse. We’ll see more games/teams in Europe, Canada and Mexico with summer leagues before we see any kind of rational reform.
The bowl system doesn’t mean anything in the era of:
Expanded playoff – with 5 teams in the playoff, it meant less. Texas as the 6th highest SEC team was the standard bearer. A lot different from 2012 when Georgia goes to Orlando (should have been NO) after playing in a de facto semifinal in the SECCG.
Opt outs – players and coaches bailing on their teams for their next gig. Whether good or bad doesn’t matter. It is.
The compressed calendar – if you think coaches are preparing their teams for a bowl game the same way they do in the regular season, I have a bridge over the East River to sell you. They are focused on signing day and roster management. They are making sure boosters are tampering with the right players elsewhere.
I didn’t watch anything of note other than if I was at a restaurant and a game happened to be in view.
For the first time that I can remember, I don’t think I watched a whole half of any bowl game. I would come in on the late third quarter, if it was close, and watch the ending. I do record them, so that makes it easy for me. But to sit here and watch a game with ten minutes worth of commercials, and to listen to talking heads that continually yap, nah, not anymore.
I did watch all the playoff games to the ending except one, guess? yes, Georgia. Why? well, I hate a frigging late kickoff. My old ass can’t stay up till midnight anymore, hence, I record all games. I did watch until about ten minutes into the 4th and after cussing tell I got tired of cussing, I said damn this. And also, Georgia tends to not play up to their STANDARD in late kickoff games. It would interest me in to seeing the Dawgs win – losses in games that start later than 8:00pm? Get on it JP, EE.
To each his own, I’m not saying everyone should be me. I watched little of the 1st round (was at Disney World with my family and had a blast). I watched and listened to maybe a quarter of the Oregon game (I went to the golf course to hit range balls). By the time I got home, the splattering in Pasadena was underway (I watched most of it with the sound off). I watched the 4th quarter of the Miami game after dinner with the family.
EE. When I said get on it, I was referring to you stat gurus to possible give us a breakdown of the Dawgs win – loss record in games played at 8:00pm or later. I’m just curious. Just seems like we don’t play as well. Could just be in my head.
Sorry, I thought you meant I was taking an opposite view.
Reading should be my friend.
In the Smart era, Dawgs are 4-4 in games that started at 8 pm eastern or later.
Thanks man. Guess it wasn’t all in my head. 50-50. Not what I would expect from a Smart coached team.
Two of those are Sugar Bowls of course which kicks off at 7 pm central (and the Alabama game in 2020 which kicked at 7 central). From a time zone standpoint, it’s the same as any game we would think of as a traditional night game and would likely have the same pregame prep routine. Only 1 of the 4 losses occurred in the eastern time zone (2017/18 championship game in Atlanta).
Therefore, I don’t think there’s much to this unless you want to drill down on the time zone aspect.
Were that many people actually watching? Or were there 8.7 million TVs at Applebee’s and Chili’s, etc with that many TVs tuned to the same channel.
They only count the location as 1 viewer, regardless of the number of TVs tuned in to the game. If they have different games on multiple different TVs, each game gets counted as 1 viewer for the location.
I’ll take all the cfb I can get. Great way to end the old year and start the new year.
Same here. I watched a lot (though none yesterday – still grieving) and there were a lot of entertaining games. No, the bowls don’t mean anything in terms of rankings but it means a lot to the kids playing, especially the backups. The Alamo Bowl in particular was interesting because of TCU winning in OT with their backup QB. Plus there were a ton of amazing plays, including the winning TD.
More CFB is a feature, not a bug.
I think they got lucky with Christmas and New Years being on a Thursday, lots of people had the intervening Friday off, so they got good viewing windows for the games, particularly for those of us stuck at others’ homes and/or trying to get to Crapplebees or Chilis to escape….
I watched a lot of the bowl games. I had a lot of time off and had about killed as many deer as I wanted to and it was something to do. But also, bowls always mean college football is about gone and in May we would all love to be able to watch a live college football game even if it was Ohio and UNLV (I watched that game). And you know something? Some of those early bowls that not many people care about were actually a lot more fun to watch than most if the early playoff games. I thought so anyway.
My thoughts exactly, Mike.
Burnt out….at least for this season.
This is not CF but semi-pro, driven by money and has little or nothing to do with higher learning and education…it almost seems ridiculous to even mention those things now.
Gone are the days of actual students that also happen to be athletes, now replaced by paid athletes or free-agentish mercenaries who may or may not be actual students. Even high school kids are moving around..looking for the golden egg.
NIL (furnished by TV) did this.
When was the last time a key player from an elite program was dropped from a team because of grades? (If there have been, I’ve missed it..but I admittedly miss a lot).
Student athletes my ass. (yeah..it’s always been that way to a degree but now it’s not even hidden).
I spoke with a young man who just graduated from a Sunbelt school where he played four years as a walk-on. He laughed when I asked him if the players attended class. He said the ones without a scholarship do.
Also (while I’m bitching)..players opting out because their team isn’t in the CFP is dishonest and self-serving and rude to the hosting city.
Maybe that’s just today’s culture.
Kids like Gunner are a taste of the old, noble culture which is a breath of fresh air…so are coaches like Kirby. But can they survive in a swimming pool full of sharks?
Hell, we’ve got people wanting to bench Stockton for some glittery mercenary out of the portal.
Does anyone else remember the Senator’s warning that with the growing success of UGA football we must be on guard not to become like the Gumps? A lot of Georgia fans are acting just like Alabama fans…(as in) Win the SEC but lose a close one in the CFP? FIRE THE OC! BENCH THE QB!! Fire everybody, blame everybody…be miserable because you only won 90 percent of your games. The coaches are expected to win every game or they suck! Get a pro QB from the portal…etc. ad nauseam.
(Actually, I’m not seeing this too much on GTPR..where posters are a little bit more knowledgeable and thoughtful than the morons on other blogs…but we do have our few.)
Good luck to O’Ms…I hope you can win it all.
Now excuse me..I need to go run some kids off my lawn.
Great post Ugly
Timinsav
Yes I am a man of few words, as a wise man once said, You can be thought a fool or open your mouth and remove all doubt. LOL
Timinsav
I find that I DO NOT watch the bowl games anymore as I have no interest watching these teams lay eggs with all of their opt-outs missing those games. If they don’t care anymore, why should I? Plus, why do I want to watch 5-7 and 6-6 teams playing anyone? There are too many bowls and too many unworthy teams in those bowls.
As far as the playoffs are concerned, I think that the ONLY game that should be in a “neutral” bowl game location should be the national championship game. When the #3 seed that got a bye is “rewarded” with a neutral game vs a predominately majority Ole Miss crowd in New Orleans, something needs to change. What good is the bye when it’s basically a month off and then you don’t even get a home game as a reward? Screw the bowls, they are no longer needed for the playoff teams. Give them all to the non-playoff teams. This is one of those times where the CFP needs to follow the NFL model of higher seeded teams getting home games until they play the Super Bowl. They also need to re-seed after each round to REWARD the top seeds with playing the lowest seeded teams.
On the location, thank the SEC for that. The SEC and Big 12 still have the agreement that their highest rated team will go to New Orleans. If they are going to keep the neutral sites for quarters, let the seeds select their quarterfinal and semifinal spots.
We knocked off the Loveliest Little Basketball School on the Plains. Go Dawgs!
I watched for a few minutes. Just enough to see us let them tie it up on a miracle shot. Left the room, and VOILA! we won. You’re welcome.
Watched BB till OT. My sweet wife let’s go for our walk. I had worried for regulation!! Got home and BOOM. That will be my MO for rest of BB season!l l hate everybody but us!! Go Dawgs!!
DVR is my friend for a spectacular finish…twice…with the ability to fast forward to the end of regulation and OT. These Dawgs are good!
I tuned in just in time to see us win. I guess Im good luck.