Happy New Year, college football fans! All of here at the GCR (ok, me), wish you a safe and uneventful 2021. From a football standpoint, the last few days have been both exciting and disappointing. Exciting because it started with a thriller with Oklahoma St (21) jumping to a 21-0 lead after a single quarter against Miami FL (7) before the Hurricanes took over and made a game of it – final: Cowboys 37-34. Then Texas (22) destroyed Colorado (24) 55-23 in a game never in doubt for the Longhorns. On Wednesday, Wisconsin (57) and Wake Forest (46) played a tight game with an early Demon Deacons lead that couldn’t hold up. The Badgers won the Mayo (nee Belk) Bowl 42-28, then their QB fumbled the trophy smashing into pieces. What on paper looked like a really great game turned into the second rout of this round of bowl games when Oklahoma (11) stomped Florida (16) 55-20. New Year’s Eve is always fun when it comes to bowl games and in this case 2020 did not disappoint. Mississippi St (70) held off Tulsa (26) 28-26, Ball St (29) beat its second straight undefeated team, first Buffalo (35) in the MAC championship, by beating San Jose St (15) 34-13 in the Arizona Bowl – getting off to a 27-0 start helps a lot. And finally Army (27) took West Virginia (49) to the edge before the Mountaineers held on 24-21.
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Round 2 was disappointing because a) the GCR was a god-awful 1-6 in predictions with Oklahoma keeping the formula from a goose egg (go Sooners!), b) both the Music City Bowl (Missouri v Iowa) and the Texas Bowl (Arkansas v TCU) were cancelled due to this god-awful pandemic, and c) Mississippi St and Tulsa players had a completely unsportsmanlike, non-football related brawl that ended a great game in an embarrassing way while giving a Tulsa safety a probably concussion in a god-awful display of lack of discipline by the two teams.
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With that 1-6 shellacking, the GCR is now a disappointing 9-7 with 9 games to go (including the championship game) in the bowl season. Here’s how the conferences have done so far with winners and losers.
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Kudos to the Big 12 for not only going 4-0 so far in the post season but winning 3 GCR upsets. The American has 2 upset losses (along with the ACC) so far and have an expected Cincinnati (8) win over Georgia (10) to avoid a 1-5 post-season. Currently it’s halftime with the Bearcats up 14-10. In the other active game favored Northwestern (23) is beating (as expected) Auburn (28) 14-0 early in the second quarter. Later today the semifinals kick off starting at 4:00 (all times Eastern) when Alabama (1) takes on Notre Dame (3) followed at 8:00 with Clemson (2) and Ohio St (4). Interesting fact: the Buckeyes have never beaten a team from South Carolina (0-4 vs Clemson and 0-2 vs South Carolina – all in bowl games). On Saturday there are 4 more games:
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Gator Bowl: Kentucky (61) v NC St (18)
Outback Bowl: Mississippi (66) v Indiana (12)
Fiesta Bowl: Oregon (41) v Iowa St (14)
Orange Bowl: UNC (17) v Texas A&M (5).
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Here’s the table with expected winners and losers by conference:
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And, with that, we will end this edition of the Exploration. I hope you have a great football weekend. Thanks for supporting the GCR by reading, commenting, questioning, challenging, and mostly by sharing with others, G
