College football bowl season is all wrapped as the only thing that remains is the final four and national championship games. With opt outs, the transfer portal, and coaching departures the importance of bowl season has certainly been watered down but this year's games were incredible to say the least.
Let’s take a look at the biggest winners and losers from the 35 bowl games that took place outside of the College Football Playoff.
Winners
Big Ten
With four teams in the playoff and eight others in bowls, the Big Ten showed up and showed out. They amassed a 5-3 record in bowl games with three of those wins being colossal upsets over SEC schools (USC over Texas A&M, Michigan over Alabama, Illinois over South Carolina).
The three losses they took came by a combined seven points and the conference has not looked too shabby in the CFP with two teams still alive. This year's performance by the conference in bowl season may just have done it for the college football world to say B10>SEC.
Lane Kiffin
With all the talk and arguing that Lane Kiffin did for why his team should have been in the playoff, he backed it up in a dominant 52-20 victory over Duke in the Gator Bowl. Now yes they were 17.5 point favorites and playing an inferior Duke team filled with holes due to the transfer portal, but how Ole Miss looked compared to others in a similar situation deserves some praise.
I would like to crown Lane Kiffin as the savior of the SEC this bowl season.
AAC
The undisputed winner of bowl season as the AAC walked away as the winner of the Bowl Challenge Cup which is awarded to the conference with the highest winning percentage.
The conference went a strong 6-2 which included three wins against Power 4 conference teams. Hat tip to the American.
The Fans
As I mentioned earlier, bowl season has really lost its aura in recent years, but what we got as fans out of this year's bowl games made us the biggest winners. From start to finish it was thriller after thriller and we even got to see some top talent, who normally would have opted out, perform.
20 of the 35 bowls were one possession games and we got some all-time classics that will never be forgotten: Pitt/Toledo six overtime thriller, USF/San Jose State going five overtimes on Christmas Eve night, Washington’s comeback coming up just short against Louisville, and many more.
As a fan, I will never forget the 2024 bowl season.
Losers
ACC
The ACC fell right on their face this bowl season. Although they had 11 teams playing in bowls they went an abysmal 2-9.
Four of the conference's losses came against Group of 5 opponents and one of their wins was Syracuse going up against a Washington State team that was without half of their starters and their head coach and they competed with the Orange for most of the game.
It was not a good month to be an ACC defender.
SEC
The SEC suffered some embarrassing losses this bowl season that has many thinking it may not be that different down there.
They did end up with a 6-4 record, but two of their teams who sat right outside of the playoff, Alabama and South Carolina, lost in games they were heavily favored. I know I am leaving the playoff out of this, but it is impossible not to mention the embarrassing performance that Tennessee put on.
The record does not show it, but to see what type of postseason it really was for the conference, just type in the letters ‘SEC’ on X.
Colorado
With all the hype of Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter playing, the last dance for Deion with his boys, the team flying in a custom Rolls Royce plane to the game, Colorado layed a big egg in the Alamo Bowl.
The Buffs lost 36-14 to BYU in a game that they were out of from the jump. Travis Hunter made a play or two that were exciting, but overall this game was highlighted by what we saw for most of the time that Shedeur played QB in Boulder, bad offensive line play.
Major props to BYU for showing up in a game that few, including myself, believed they would and ruining the swan song for many Colorado players who helped turn that program around.