The 2021 college football bowl season has concluded, and what a bowl season we got. While we lost five games due to cancellations, 37 were still played, which is a lot more than last year. As is the case every postseason, some bowls were amazing and made you wish there were 100 more being played. Then some made you question the purpose of the bowl system existing at all.
In the end, it was an average year. The good news is that while not every game was a thriller, there weren’t a lot of blowouts. Of the 37 games played, 14 finished as one-score affairs while 11 finished with margins of at least three scores. The average margin of victory was 13.9 points per game, which is less than last year’s 14.8.
Of course, these are all just numbers, and numbers aren’t as fun as opinions. So let’s get to the opinions. I ranked all 42 of the bowl games before they were played, so now I will rank the 37 that were played. It’s college football, after all, and in college football, we rank things.
37. Pinstripe Bowl
Maryland 54, Virginia Tech 10: The game that spawned a tweet that sailed 1,000 takes. Yes, when my Cover 3 Podcast co-host Danny Kanell tweeted out there were “too many bowls” and set off a firestorm, it happened during this game. I can’t blame Danny for feeling that way watching this, nor can I blame anybody else for preferring to get into an argument than watch any more of this game. Virginia Tech showed up with a skeleton coaching staff and a very thin roster, and it showed Maryland was also missing plenty of player, but it looked like a team actually interested in playing football. Pregame ranking: 37 (E)
36. Orange Bowl
No. 3 Georgia 34, No. 2 Michigan 11: There’s at least one College Football Playoff game every year that ends in a rout,…
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