The college football bowl season is among the most highly anticipated events on the sports calendar every year as fans countdown to December when they will get to see the top teams in the country compete against one another including the four best teams clashing in the annual College Football Playoff. Last year’s bowl season was among the most memorable in particularly because of Ohio State’s surprising national championship run but this year’s bowl season has felt much different with disappointment as the prevailing theme. Here is a look at the biggest reasons why this year’s bowl season has been the worst in the history of college football.
The Playoff Stinks
If the last two seasons have taught us anything it’s that if the College Football Playoff bombs then the bowl season will be considered a major disappointment as well and that has certainly been the case this year with a dramatic drop off between the pairs of semi-final matchups. Last year’s playoff featured the Buckeyes’ surprising run after they were criticized simply for getting in and a lot of hype was pumped in to this year’s matchup with the anticipation that college football fans would get plenty of drama in two memorable showdowns but that simply hasn’t been the case. Instead, college fans celebrated New Year’s Eve with two underwhelming matchups as Clemson blew away Oklahoma and then Alabama absolutely dominated Michigan State. The media has doubled down on the National Championship game with the hope that the top two teams in the country playing against one another will provide some reprieve but it certainly feels like too late to save this year’s playoff.
The New Year’s Six Was Awful
The disappointing College Football Playoff semi-final was extremely disappointing and in some ways, that put even more pressure on the New Year’s Six bowl games to provide some relief. However, when those games weren’t any better it was that much more difficult to stomach. The New Year’s Day games had absolutely nothing to do with the national title picture and that made it hard to buy in but the real problem was the fact that the average margin of victory in those games was 24.2 points, which is nearly double what it was for the 28 bowls played between December 19th and December 30th. The closest margin of victory between December 31st and January 1st was 14 points and that made it so much easier to change the channel. Moving the semifinals to New Year’s Eve was a mistake and the fact that the typically strong New Year’s Day games didn’t deliver put a big damper on bowl season.
The Drama Had Passed Us By
College football fans won’t forget Alabama running all over LSU, Michigan State shocking Ohio State or Clemson surviving scares from Notre Dame and North Carolina to get to the playoff. However, the problem with all of those dramatic finishes was the fact that fans expected more of the same when the bowl season finally arrived. The drama had somewhat passed us by at that point and as a result there just wasn’t that many memorable moments that stayed with us from this year’s bowl games. It was a crazy regular season with some historic finishes. That set the bar really high for the postseason and that’s been hard to live up to.
The Hype Was Too Much
The combination of a severe lack of drama at the exact time that was hyped up to be the point in the year where college fans would witness the most drama created a situation where the hype was just way too much and there is no doubt the letdown added to the disappointment of the bowl season overall. All of the countless commercials, tweets and other promotions to hype the bowl games created a sense of expectation and when it all unfolded there is no doubt that letdown added to the sense of disappointment regarding what at this point certainly feels like the worst bowl season in the history of college football.
