Bowl games winners and losers

[BleedGopher]

per Axios Sports:


Winners:

• Justin Fields: There are no words for Fields' myth-making performance against Clemson. 22/28 with 385 yards, six TD and a pick, all while playing over half the game in what appeared to be agonizing pain.
• The Big 12: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Texas and West Virginia went 5-0 in bowl games against teams with a combined 33-10 record.
• ESPN: All 25 games aired on the ESPN family of networks. It's good to be king.

Losers:

• The ACC: The conference's 0-6 record tied the 2016 MAC and 2020 C-USA for the worst mark in history.
• Notre Dame: The Irish are 0-7 in BCS and New Year's Six games since 1998, losing by an average of 23 points and never fewer than 14.
• Fans of close games: 11 of the 14 CFP semifinal games have been decided by double-digit points, and six have been blowouts (20+ points). Not ideal.

Go Gophers!!

 

[Ogie Ogilthorpe]

Can't stand OSU but actually happy for Justin Fields. Showed some leadership and courage to stand up and lead the charge in the push to getting the B1G to pull their head out and get the season going. Good to see the young man get rewarded and see some of his hard work pay off! He played one heckuva game, for sure

 

[Schnauzer]

It was close to have the B1G be a "winner" here as well as a couple games that could have gone the other way to make the SEC a "loser" on this list. But, especially Indiana and Cincinnati blew it so that made things overall more of a push for the two leagues.

If the past is any indication, being a "winner" or "loser" in bowl season doesn't seem to change anything though. Regardless of how the SEC does, they will populate half the top 10 preseason rankings next year anyway, as always, and guarantee that the league will be immune to a drop in league prestige because of their overwhelming diet of cupcakes in non-conference, and the way most losses don't hurt within the league because they are to highly rated opponents and most wins are big boosts because most wins are against... highly rated opponents. It is always set up very nicely for them.

 

[Some guy]

We wouldn’t want to expand the playoff to let more teams in or we might get blowouts in semifinals

 

[Some guy]

I think an expanded playoffs would see fewer blowouts.
Notre dame would’ve been more able to stick with Alabama if the playoff started 6 days after conference championships instead of 3-4 weeks after (in a typical year)

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

I think these lists are dumb.

Notre Dame might be disappointed by the game but I'm willing to bet they're happy to be a playoff team again / see that as an achievement.

 

[LakerFan]

How about Auburn for the losers list? Beat two years in a row by a big ten team.

 

[MaxyJR1]

I think an expanded playoffs would see fewer blowouts.
Notre dame would’ve been more able to stick with Alabama if the playoff started 6 days after conference championships instead of 3-4 weeks after (in a typical year)

agree. Allows games to be closer together and likely upsets in the round of 8.