2015 Birmingham Bowl results: Florida sneaks past ECU

Florida’s 2014 campaign finished at 7-5 following a 28-20 win over East Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl. Here are the key numbers from the Gators’ victory.

The former blue-chip recruit’s career somehow finishes with only 14.5 sacks and 34 tackles for loss in three seasons. Those are perfectly solid totals, but he’s one of those players that looks great when he looks good, one whose stats don’t match what FELT like his level of dominance. He only had 5.5 sacks in the first 11 games of the season, and if you watched the combination of technique and rage that he brought to the table in Birmingham, you’d have guessed that number would be closer to 15.5.

Florida is officially 1-0 since hiring Jim McElwain. The Gators’ new head coach may not have been involved in their 28-20 win over East Carolina in Saturday’s Birmingham Bowl, but his new team showed off some promise in a victory over one of the nation’s best smaller conference teams. Defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin served as the Gators’ interim head coach.

East Carolina started the scoring when Justin Hardy jumped over a Florida defender for the receiving touchdown. The Pirates’ offense started off hot against what has been a good Gators defensive unit, as quarterback Shane Carden complete nine of his first 11 passes for 73 yards and that score.

ECU may be losing, but AVAST! THEY WILL TAKE AHOLD OF THIS SHIP!

or at the very least one of the many mizzen masts encircling the stadium in Birmingham

Did you know: 18-to-22 year old men like to hold large objects up to their crotches and pretend they are giant penises?

And if Florida shows up, too, the matchups could be pretty fun. Let’s look at three questions for Saturday’s Florida-ECU game at Legion Field (noon, ESPN).

Teams with interim coaches tend to be, shall we say, unpredictable. Maybe they rally around the assistant in charge, like current ECU head coach Ruffin McNeill’s charges did at Texas Tech, when he was bowl interim in the wake of Mike Leach’s firing. Maybe they start slow, like Houston did in Friday’s Armed Forces Bowl. Maybe they fall apart late, like Pittsburgh did in Friday’s Armed Forces Bowl.

It’s strength against strength in the 2015 Birmingham Bowl, as the high-powered offense of East Carolina faces the top-ranked defense of Florida. Kickoff is set for noon ET on January 3, with television coverage on ESPN and streaming service on WatchESPN.

The Birmingham Bowl, played at Legion Field, is celebrating its ninth anniversary by returning to its original name. The game had previously been known as the BBVA Compass Bowl and the PapaJohns.com Bowl. SEC participants have won the last two editions of the game, with Vanderbilt defeating Houston in the 2014 contest.

Despite their strong regular season play in recent years, the Kansas State Wildcats are just 1-5 straight up and against the spread over their last six bowl appearances. The Wildcats will be looking for more favorable results in the Alamo Bowl at 6:45 p.m. ET on Friday against the UCLA Bruins.

Kansas State is a 1.5-point underdog in the Alamo Bowl, according to sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. Both teams finished the season with 9-3 SU records, but Kansas State held the clear ATS edge at 8-4 over UCLA at 4-8 ATS. The betting favorite is 5-1 ATS over the last six Alamo Bowl games.

The SEC’s recent domination of postseason play is pretty widely known. Until Florida State beat Auburn last season, the conference had produced the last seven national champions in a row, and these numbers show just how dominant the SEC has been since 2007.

The only other conference with a winning record in January bowls during that timeframe is the Pac-12, with less than a quarter of the games the SEC has played. Sure, the SEC is getting more opportunities in marquee bowl games than the other conferences, but they’re also doing a much better job of taking advantage of them.

The Birmingham Bowl may not be a familiar name for most college football fans, but it’s actually just the BBVA Compass Bowl, which has been around since 2010. The BBVA Compass Bowl used to be named the PapaJohns.com Bowl from 2006-10. Before that, the PapaJohns.com Bowl was named -- you guessed it! -- the Birmingham Bowl. I think we might have just figured out the plot for Inception 2. This year, East Carolina and Florida will meet in Birmingham.

Here is everything you need to know prior to kickoff.