Five Non-BCS Bowl Games Worth Watching

By Brett Samuels

By now it’s likely that most college football fans have fully processed all the major bowl games.

Alabama and Notre Dame will play for the national title in a battle of two historic programs, Oregon and Kansas State will play in a “what could have been” Fiesta Bowl, and Northern Illinois will take on Florida State to prove that they belong in the Orange Bowl.

However there are plenty of non-BCS bowl games to whet the appetite of any college football fan. 30 to be exact, but who’s counting. Here are five bowl games to watch as the holiday season comes and goes that aren’t included in the BCS package. Some have the country’s most exciting players, some have teams that were just barely left out of the BCS picture, but all of them have something worth keeping an eye on:

1. AT&T Cotton Bowl- Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma

(AP Photo)

This game will feature newly crowned Heisman trophy winner Johnny Manziel leading the Aggies against Oklahoma. The Sooners finished the season with two losses, to Kansas State and No. 1 Notre Dame, and missed out on a BCS bowl because of the technicality that put Northern Illinois in the Orange Bowl. The Sooners will need to shake off the disappointment if they want to contain Johnny Football on January 4.

2. Chick-fil-A Bowl- LSU vs. Clemson

Clemson had an outside chance at making a BCS bowl if they hadn’t lost to in state rival South Carolina at the end of they year. But rather than falling to an irrelevant bowl against a mediocre team, Clemson will have to face No. 8 LSU in a battle of the Tigers. Clemson was embarrassed by West Virginia 70-33 in their bowl game last year, so they will be looking for redemption against an LSU team that only suffered losses to Alabama and Florida this year.

3. Capital One Bowl- Georgia vs. Nebraska

The Bulldogs fell five yards short of playing for the national championship, and now they will have to settle for a trip to Orlando to face Nebraska. The Cornhuskers seemed like the Big Ten’s only hope to put a respectable team in the Rose Bowl until they were obliterated by Wisconsin the conference title game. Now they have to quickly regroup because Georgia has as much talent as any team in the country. The only question will be if Georgia comes out motivated, or if they come out flat because of the disappointment of the SEC title game.

4. New Era Pinstripe Bowl- Syracuse vs. West Virginia

This game may not seem like much at first glance, but it features two of the most potent offenses in the country. It’s also a tale of two very different seasons. West Virginia started off 5-0 with Geno Smith playing like a Heisman favorite. They proceeded to lose five straight and now find themselves in the Pinstripe bowl. Syracuse on the other hand started their year 2-4 before winning five of their last six. It will be interesting to see if West Virginia can right the ship when they face the Orange at Yankee Stadium.

5. Holliday Bowl- UCLA vs. Baylor

Another matchup that is likely to fly under the radar is the holiday bowl. However it features one of the highest scoring teams in the country in Baylor, and one of the best running backs in the nation in UCLA’s Jonathan Franklin. The big question mark is if Baylor can stop anybody on defense, otherwise UCLA will continue its resurgence and win this one big.

So while the big matchups may not take place until January 1 or later, there are still more than a few games worth watching to pass some time as the year winds down.