Mississippi State vs. Miami (OH), St. Pete Bowl 2016: Schedule, scores, and more

FPeak SEC occurred in late-October 2014.

When the College Football Playoff committee unveiled its inaugural midseason rankings, the league claimed four of the top six teams in the country: No. 1 Mississippi State, No. 3 Auburn, No. 4 Ole Miss, and No. 6 Alabama. At 6-1, No. 11 Georgia was within striking distance of a Playoff bid as well.

I use advanced stats whenever possible, but I’m not a zealot. I understand that there is a time and place for most things — kicking 18-yard field goals, punting from the opponent’s 37, etc. — just as there’s a time and place for, say, staying on 12 in Blackjack.

If you’re up six or seven points midway through the fourth quarter, that field goal could put the game away. If you’re down two in the closing seconds, kick that damn ball.

In a football game played at a baseball stadium, the St. Pete Bowl between Miami (OH) and Mississippi State resembled America’s pastime in pacing and point quantity for the first half of the proceedings. But special teams reigned supreme and the Bulldogs were able to hold on thanks to two big blocked kicks.

As Mississippi State battled back, it was QB Nick Fitzgerald that led the charge. This 44-yard TD got them in striking distance, and they’d take a 17-16 lead with a field goal in the fourth. Fitzgerald finished the game with 126 yards through the air and 132 on the ground.

The whole college football season matters. That’s what we tell ourselves. A baseball team could go 83-78 and win the World Series. An NFL team can go 9-7 and win the Super Bowl. An NBA team can go 44-38 and win the NBA title. But that doesn’t happen in college football.

If it did, USC or Florida State might be a title favorite. Or hey, maybe Western Kentucky.

There are too many bowl games. OK, sure, fine. They still make players happy, mean football on TV, and make enough people money to keep happening.

The day after Christmas 2016 might be the stiffest test yet each of these arguments has faced. Of the six teams scheduled to play on Boxing Day, not one has a winning record.

There may not be a better story in college football than the RedHawks, and you probably don’t realize it. Halfway through the season, Miami (OH) was on the doorstep of bowl inelgibility at 0-6. But then they won six straight games, culminating in a 21-20 victory over Ball State. The RedHawks scored late and would hold onto their lead to put the game away.

Mississippi State squeaked into the postseason thanks to an APR score that qualified them as one of only two 5-7 squads to make a bowl game. It may be Dan Mullen’s best work as a head coach of the Bulldogs to replace former standout Dak Prescott with Nick Fitzgerald and continue to at least experience some modicum success in the toughest division in college football.

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.

Bowl games are good. There are too many of them. Both things are true.

We’re holding steady at 41 on this year’s schedule, counting the National Championship, and again have multiple 5-7 teams that made it in because we ran out of 6-6 teams (Mississippi State and North Texas this time).

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.)

Alabama won the SEC, obliterating Florida in the conference championship game on Saturday to the surprise of no one, 54-16. The defending champs will advance to the Peach Bowl against Washington as the undisputed No. 1 seed, making the Playoff for the third year in a row. That’s every year of the Playoff, which nobody else has done.

Nick Saban’s dynasty is amazing. It’s also come at the expense of the conference. And this year’s been a perfect storm of Alabama brilliance and everyone else’s mediocrity or worse. Let’s have a look at the conference’s post-title game, pre-bowl standings:

Also, head over here for the fully updated bowl season calendar as it fills in, from the New Orleans Bowl through the Rose Bowl.

Tropicana Field is one of Major League Baseball’s quietest game atmospheres, but a fun twist is putting a college football bowl game under its roof. And that’s exactly what’s being done nowadays, as the Trop’s the home of the St. Petersburg Bowl.