Top 5 non-playoff college football bowl games in 2022-23

The college football bowl game schedule has been released and here are five non-playoff matchups that caught my eye.

If you love college football, then you know there are few things better than college football bowl games which will commence in less than two weeks.

After an exciting season and a crazy championship week in which the No. 3 and No. 4 teams both lost, we now know the bowl game lineup, and while most college football fans are focused on the playoff matchups, there are tons of quality bowl games on the schedule.

Georgia and Ohio State will do battle in the Peach Bowl, while Michigan and TCU will square off in the Fiesta Bowl.

We have two repeat teams from the playoff, but Ohio State hasn’t won the national title since the first edition in 2014. Michigan hasn’t won since 1997. For TCU it has been since 1938.

However, there are plenty of other bowl games you should care about and watch — at least if you love college football as much as I do, so here are five non-playoff college football bowl games you should watch in 2022-23.

In fact, here are the top five.

5. Cure Bowl: No. 24 Troy vs No. 25 UTSA (Dec 16)

Here’s an interesting fact for you: The 2022 Cure Bowl will be the only college football bowl game that will feature two conference champions. The College Football Playoff can’t even make that claim and won’t be able to unless Georgia and Michigan both advance.

To me, that’s crazy. College football was once built on bowl games between conference champions. Anyway, I’m a sucker for these matchups and wish they happened more often, especially between Group of Five teams.

Troy is ranked 24th in the CFP rankings and UTSA is 25th. The Roadrunners won Conference USA for the second year in a row, while the Trojans won the Sun Belt Championship.

The Trojans have the No. 12 scoring defense in college football and a dominant running game, while the Roadrunners score 40 points and have one of the best QBs you’ve probably never heard of in Frank Harris.

It should be well worth the watch.