2015 St. Petersburg Bowl: Marshall beats UConn in defensive battle

Honestly, a 6-6 cutoff for a bowl is pretty arbitrary. Going by F/+ ratings, your average 5-7 power-conference team is midway between your average 7-5 or 8-4 mid-major. The only reason we cut things off at 6-6 is to make ourselves feel better about not sending a team with a losing record to a bowl.

We learned this year that having 40 bowls is a tipping point. While there were plenty of scenarios that could make for 80 bowl-eligible teams, three 5-7 teams -- Nebraska, San Jose State, and Minnesota -- got postseason bids.

Two teams with strong defenses faced off in the St. Petersburg Bowl Saturday. The game lived up to that billing, as Marshall beat UConn 16-10 in a tightly contested game.

Marshall took the lead in the first quarter on a touchdown pass from Chase Litton, but UConn tied it up before the quarter was over on a touchdown run. From that point on, the scoring happened entirely via field goal: three for the Thundering Herd, one for the Huskies.

UConn started their season at 3-5. Now, they’re hoping that a late season upset of No. 18 Houston will be the fulcrum that pivots them back to a winning season.

The Huskies pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season when they took advantage of a hobbled Houston team and beat the then-undefeated Cougars 20-17. That victory clinched bowl eligibility in Storrs, and while Connecticut lost their follow-up game to No. 24 Temple, the damage was done. UConn was heading to the postseason for the first time since 2010.

Marshall head coach Doc Holliday is still a good recruiter, and his Thundering Herd are still a potent collection of athleticism. After taking three years to build a foundation, Holliday has both taken the Herd to a new level and, to some degree, kept them there. After going 23-5 in 2013-14, Marshall lost a major load of playmakers and team leaders, and with a bowl win, the Herd can still finish with 10 wins.

There’s definitely been a drop-off, though, not necessarily in team ceiling but in team floor. Seven of Marshall’s nine wins came by at least 16 points, and the Herd were occasionally dominant -- 31-10 over Southern Miss, 52-0 over FIU. But a younger team usually has trouble maintaining, and Marshall was a pretty young team. After beating Purdue by 10, the Herd lost to Ohio by 11. After handling Charlotte, they lost to MTSU. After crushing FIU, they lost to WKU by three touchdowns. An experienced defense has remained steady (Marshall ranks 36th in Def. S&P+), but the offense hasn’t been reliable.

There are now 40 bowl games, plus the National Championship. That’s a lot of football.

This overflow of football has meant the usual group of 6-6 teams aren’t the worst teams to go bowling this year. This time, all of the 6-6 teams are in, plus some 5-7 teams. The idea of giving a trophy to a team that finishes 6-7 is a funny one, but everything about this sport is funny, so whatever.

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The ghost of the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl and the Bitcoin Bowl lives on with the St. Petersburg, which will play its eighth-ever game in 2015 at Tropicana Field.

Originally founded as the magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl, Beef O’Brady’s took over as the title sponsor in 2009 and St. Petersburg was eliminated from the title altogether in 2010. When Beef O’Brady’s dropped sponsorship, Bitcoin stepped up in 2014, but that lasted just one year.