Oklahoma State vs. Colorado, Alamo Bowl 2016: Cowboys dominate

Every college football media outlet has somebody who does bowl projections, or weekly-ish guesses on which teams will end up playing in which bowls. At SB Nation, it’s me, for no other reason than I started doing it years ago and wasn’t smart enough to stop. I’m occasionally OK at it.

Going back to my preseason guesses, let’s review what went the most sideways. I didn’t list specific records for each team (though I did pick each game beforehand as a starting point), so this is more about which teams ended up the most tiers’ worth of bowls away from where some idiot had put them.

We judge a coach harshly for poor halftime adjustments when a team blows a halftime lead. We praise a coach to high heavens for the same thing if there’s a second-half turnaround.

But halftime adjustments aren’t nearly what we make them. For one thing, you’re adjusting all game, from the opening series. For another, though halftime is an opportunity for all of a team’s coaches to chat face-to-face in a less real-time atmosphere, by the time the guys in the booth get down the elevator and to the locker room, they’ve got about five or 10 minutes. Not exactly time to fill the dry erase board.

Colorado was losing 24-0 to Oklahoma State in this year’s Alamo Bowl, and in the second half, the Buffs were playing without their starting quarterback, Sefo Liufau. The signal caller was reported as not be expected to return to the game at the start of the second half, due to an ankle injury. But in the third quarter, Liufau unexpectedly returned to the field.

He was able to successfully get the Buffs on the board for the first time all night in the fourth quarter, making it a 31-8 game against Oklahoma State.

Colorado entered the 2016 Alamo Bowl looking to cap off a dream season under fourth-year head coach Mike MacIntyre. But Oklahoma State’s offense came out firing on all cylinders, scoring two touchdowns and a field goal to take a 17-0 lead at halftime.

The Cowboys didn’t let up in the second half, scoring two more passing touchdowns to pile it on and go up 31-0. The foot was never let off the gas, and the Cowboys got the Alamo Bowl victory over Colorado by a score of 38-8.

Programming note: The Alamo Bowl will kick off at 9:10 p.m ET on ESPNews, and will move to ESPN once the Belk Bowl concludes.

The Alamo Bowl shapes up like a really good one in 2016. It pits the Big 12’s runner up, Oklahoma State, against the Pac-12’s, Colorado. Both had strong seasons but got whomped in either official or unofficial conference championship games, and now they’re here. Someone will reach 10 or 11 wins and do it with gusto, and someone else will finish 0-2 and not get a bowl win. The stakes are pretty significant for a non-New Year’s Six bowl game, and the action at the Alamodome should be great fun.

One of the more fun things about this college football season has been the working bromance of ESPN’s Adam Amin and Mack Brown. They share the booth on Friday night games most prominently, and they genuinely seem to get along.

Brown, of course, coached at Texas for over a decade, winning the school’s fourth national championship. But it certainly went sour at the end in Austin, and one Texas Uber driver still isn’t a fan of the former Longhorns head man.

Colorado is a 3-point favorite in San Antonio at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. In their last 13 games after losing the previous game in a matchup, the Buffaloes are 10-3 ATS.

The Buffaloes hadn’t been bowl eligible since 2007, but they claimed bowl eligibility with authority this season. Coming off five straight seasons with four or less wins, Colorado emerged as one of the top teams in the nation this season with a 10-3 SU and ATS campaign.

Both sides are right. Bowls are a cynical money-making exercise, an excuse for ESPN inventory, and an outdated way for all the wrong people to maintain some semblance of control over college football. They’re also happy, bonus football.

We are at both extremes in 2016. We once again had 80 bowl bids to give out and fewer than 80 bowl-eligible teams, a sure sign of bloat and excess. We’re also loaded with perhaps more interesting bowl matchups than we’ve ever seen.

In today’s media landscape (sports and non-sports), self-reflection is unnecessary. You don’t really need to step back and look at what you got wrong or why; you just need to push forward with even more confidence than before.

But does Nick Saban self-reflect? Hell yes, he does! Verne Lundquist? Absolutely! Lamar Jackson? Yep!

All wagers at -110 odds unless otherwise noted. Visit Odds Shark for updated lines throughout each game week.

College football bowl games are a different beast for bettors. Sure, the typical handicapping elements apply. Offense and defense matter. But there are some key elements at play that don’t apply as much during the regular season.

Hey, look what time it is. It’s “propose college coaches for open NFL jobs” season, perhaps the most wonderful time of the year. When Jeff Fisher was fired by the Los Angeles Rams, it coincided with the explosion of a rumor that Jim Harbaugh would head back to the league to coach a team in California. The rumor came from a secondhand quote and the reporter in question, Albert Breer, later clarified.

The MMQB’s Peter King also doesn’t think Harbaugh would come back to the NFL either. King said Stanford’s David Shaw wasn’t ready for the NFL either. But he did float a few names out there who might be.

College football’s bowl season is upon us. A full schedule is here.

There are 40 bowl games spread from Dec. 17 to Jan. 2, with the National Championship on Jan. 9. Unless you’re watching on multiple monitors and are really committed, you won’t catch all of them. (If that is your plan, more power to you.)

There are plenty of things that are confusing about the way the College Football Playoff works.

One of these things is not that complicated, yet Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby (a man whom I believe to be wholly intelligent in his own right) cannot seem to get his mind around it.

The Big 12 did not have a team selected for the College Football Playoff for the second time in three years. And now Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby seems confused about what to do next.

Speaking to ESPN, Bowlsby said:

Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State, 38-20, to win the Big 12 title and beat their in-state rival in one fell swoop.

The Big 12 hasn’t had much of a Playoff chance thanks to its marquee teams picking each other off and a litter of two loss teams marking the top of the standings. But Bedlam will always have meaning and this year postseason stakes still exist as this is the de facto Big 12 championship game, despite not having any bearing on the playoff.

This wasn’t just any conference championship game for Washington. This was vindication of a program building out west under coach Chris Petersen. Washington hadn’t enjoyed a conference title since 2000, and after a 41-10 win over Colorado, the Huskies may be on to much bigger things.

In theory, the win should give the Huskies enough ammunition as a one-loss conference champion to keep Michigan and whoever wins the Big Ten at bay in the event Clemson and Alabama both win their conference championships.

Colorado quarterback Sefo Liufau has battled an ankle injury for most of the season since tweaking the right one this season against Michigan. Early in the Pac-12 Championship Game, Liufau rolled his ankle on a sack and left the game, ceding QB duties to Steven Montez.

Liufau was seen getting his ankle taped up on the sideline.