The 40 bowl games on tap offer a wide range of competitive situations. One of the complicating factors in a bowl game is the coaching industry. When coaches take jobs, teams can either get inspired by the interim head coach who is left behind, or they can lose heart and not show up for the bowl game at all. They’re physically present, but completely unmotivated to play a game and shuffle through the motions. Those are the bowl games in which teams could be too distracted or depressed to bother to play football with any real vigor:
South Florida Bulls
Birmingham Bowl
The Bulls just watched head coach Willie Taggart take the job at Oregon. Taggart was such a positive and energetic presence for South Florida that his absence, by comparison, could leave a huge gulf. The Bulls are playing a mediocre South Carolina team, and many will think that the sheer talent difference means South Florida will win the game anyway. However, USF really might not care very much, and the fact that South Carolina is 6-6 could make South Florida’s players care less about the matchup, not more. This could become a train wreck for the Bulls, who might not find any part of their bowl arrangement to be appealing right now.
Houston Cougars
Las Vegas Bowl
Houston’ players already know their former head coach, Tom Herman, has moved on to the University of Texas. This could become more of a mail-it-in scenario because Herman’s defensive coordinator, Todd Orlando, might go with Herman if since he wasn’t retained as the team’s new head coach. Major Applewhite is the new head coach and while you’d like to think this team will try hard for him, the truth is this was Herman’s team; not his. The good news is that he was previously part of the program, but who knows how the players will respond. This is not the ideal situation. Losing Orlando in addition to Herman was devastating to the Cougars before a bowl game which comes up quickly on December 17.
Indiana Hoosiers
Foster Farms Bowl
The Hoosiers had to fire coach Kevin Wilson due to an investigation which found that he did not create a safe atmosphere for players, not ensuring that they received proper medical attention when injured or at risk of injury. What happened with Wilson at Indiana was similar to what got Tim Beckman fired as the head coach of the Illinois football team a year earlier. This is a very distressing event – not the firing itself, but the fact that Wilson didn’t fully protect his players. This can easily lead to a disinterested performance from Indiana against Utah in a game it is already expected to lose. It is not easy to know if there’s anyone Indiana players can trust.
Boston College Eagles
Quick Lane Bowl
This is not a coaching-based situation. This is the exception, one in which the quality of the team is so poor that the bowl game might collapse in a hurry. It’s not even that Maryland is all that good, but Maryland did show the ability earlier in the season to hammer a bad team, as it did when it beat Purdue by over 40 points. Maryland has a young, up-and-coming coach, D.J. Durkin, who comes from the Jim Harbaugh coaching tree. The Terrapins might not be able to make their way too far up the ladder in the Big Ten East Division, given that Harbaugh and Urban Meyer and James Franklin and Mark Dantonio are all in that same division, but they should fare well in a cross-comparison with a Boston College team coached by Steve Addazio, who hasn’t been able to change the way the Eagles play or are perceived. Boston College teams under Addazio always have clunky and limited offenses. Boston College won a low-scoring game over Wake Forest to qualify for a bowl. The Eagles beat four very poor teams out of conference to have any shot at the postseason. It seems that as long as Maryland throws the first few punches in the first quarter, there’s a good chance Boston College will lose inspiration as the second and third quarters unfold.
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