Even with the birth of a new 12-team playoff, bowl games absolutely still have a place in the college football world.
The Syracuse Orange wrapped up their season on Friday night with their convincing Holiday Bowl win. While the rest of the college football world continues to make their way through this year’s bowl season, it’s hard to argue navigating that path in 2024 is way different than what it used to be before.
A new 12-team College Football Playoff has radically changed the postseason (with more changes possibly on the horizon) and placed forward the narrative of bowl games “not mattering.” Players (not all, but plenty) are choosing to opt-out, hit the transfer portal and find their next destination; ditto for the coaches, just like Syracuse’s bowl opponent in the Washington State Cougars dealt with. Conference realignment could lead to a massive shake-up over the traditional bowls where the matchups were decided by old conference affiliations.
In short, there’s plenty of conversation as the season starts to wind down over the bowl games.
But after watching Syracuse’s double-digit win over WSU in the Holiday Bowl, I firmly believe the opposite can be argued: bowl games absolutely still matter and the way we, the college football community, talk about them needs to change.
Using the situation of Syracuse as the core of our argument, being in favor of the bowl system comes down to four reasons:
Ending year on right or wrong note
This one is the biggest one, and I’ll start by posing a simple question: would you have still felt as happy if Syracuse lost rather than won the 2024 Holiday Bowl?
The Orange entered that game as a multi-score favorite and would end up beating the Cougars 52-35.
The game still absolutely carried some weight, even with Syracuse on the fringes of the top-25 and not in the CFP picture really at all.
The numbers are pretty simple to digest: 10-3 and ending the year on a win does look better than 9-4 dropping the final game of the year. Considering how coach Fran Brown’s first regular season concluded with the upset victory over the Miami Hurricanes, a loss at the end would’ve made us all feel… weird. Not bad (nine wins in year one is impressive regardless), but certainly different.
Abe Arredondo-Imagn Images
Winning the Holiday Bowl does change the outlook for the program a bit compared to not. It’ll keep ‘Cuse in the final top-25 rankings. It was the Orange’s first bowl win in almost a decade. It keeps morale still at that all-time high for 2024 versus finishing the year with a weird loss. Those are all positives the program can add to coach Brown’s successful tenure so far.
The opposite can also be true: not winning still absolutely sucks. Including myself, I’m sure no one was happy getting nuked by 45 points to South Florida in last year’s Boca Raton Bowl. The loss amplified what the program needed (huge change and a reset) and served as a microcosm for just how ugly the 2023 season turned into, capped off by a total no-show.
Quality of bowl still matters
This is another core argument that is really hard to defend against: the actual bowl game you play in absolutely still matters.
Who reading this wanted another appearance in the Pinstripe Bowl? I’m sure the Holiday Bowl wasn’t the first pick for fans… but it was certainly a better option than going back to Yankee Stadium, Boca Racon or most other bowls available.
And when the news came out Syracuse would play against WSU in San Diego, there was a lot of discussion in the aftermath. I’m sure some (including myself) wanted ‘Cuse in the Gator Bowl or Pop-Tarts Bowl. Playing an SEC opponent like South Carolina or avoiding a Cougars team just having to keep the band-aid after losing its coach, starting QB and other pieces could’ve also been an interesting way to end this year.
Within this argument, two subpoints hold true:
- The quality of the bowl still matters to the program and its fanbase
- The quality of opponent in the bowl also still matters
The key difference mainly lies with this new 12-team playoff. Those are eight teams (ranked No. 5 to No. 12) who get elevated into this playoff structure over staying in the bowl games. Purely basing this on hypothetical, you’d imagine Syracuse would play a clear top-25 opponent (who has tie-ins to the old Pac-12) rather than a fringe top-25 team. That’s the main difference going forward if the 12-team system stays intact going forward.
Individual players shining
This claim is a simple one: bowl games are a one last hurray for fans to enjoy. Seeing another awesome performance from the Syracuse passing attack, which defined a lot of this year’s success, felt great. So was watching Kyle McCord shatter a bunch of program and ACC records, LeQuint Allen and Jackson Meeks achieving milestones of their own and even the oftentimes inconsistent defense coming up with miraculous turnovers as always.
Abe Arredondo-Imagn Images
Especially (and really in Syracuse’s case) for the players eyeing the draft, the bowl games when played right can lead to elevated stock or attention. The more players the Orange can point to who get selected leads to just more success the program can point to for incoming transfers or possible recruits.
New guys coming in
On the flip side, there’s also the chance for fans to see the next pieces of the foundation get some time. The single example that always stands out to me: Allen in the Pinstripe Bowl. Look at how far he’s come between the end of that 2022 season and now. There’s other examples you could easily point to as well.
Final thoughts: bowl games in some capacity will and should have some significance going forward. There’s plenty of components — player, coach, team, fans and state of the program — who can be impacted in some way, for better or worse. There’s plenty of fixes needed (namely: fixing coaches and players could just bolt to their next destination… you don’t see free agency happen in the NBA or NFL during the middle of the season, after all), but the value is still there. The only programs who truly might not “fully” care are likely the ones who just missed out on the CFP (I’m sure Alabama would rather play in the CFP than play a 7-5 Michigan team in the ReliaQuest Bowl). Outside that, other programs (including the Orange) should take the bowls seriously. There’s plenty of reasons to do so.