Your 2016-17 bowl schedule Watchability Guide, sorting all 40 games into 3 groups

We have us a college football bowl schedule now, and it’s a pretty good one.

Below, a chart of all 40 2016-2017 bowl games, sorted by watchability and including TV/streaming info. That’s determined by a subjective combo of competitiveness, quality, what else is on at the time, the likelihood that both teams will care, how many SEC East teams are involved (try not to watch very much SEC East), and other vague factors.

I really like the way whoever’s in charge (ESPN) has gotten the order arranged. For a few recent years, lower-tier bowls kept creeping into January, costing the whole bowl calendar a sense of building toward the National Championship. Now the later in the schedule a bowl is, the more likely it is to be a big one. That’s how it should be.

And that doesn’t mean you should ignore the early bowls. Every bowl is pretty good, and the first two weeks include some games that will stand up just fine with the later stuff.

Here’s one way of looking at it:

I feel like I’m being overly generous to some days in there, but just about every bowl has something to offer, whether it’s a team’s first bowl (Old Dominion and UTSA), one of its last bowls ever (Idaho), a wild clash of styles (Minnesota-Washington State, Louisiana Tech-Navy), just two teams that happen to play entertaining games (NC State-Vanderbilt, Indiana-Utah, BYU-Wyoming), or all the really obvious good games. A good bowl schedule, top to bottom.

Except Boston College-Maryland.

I’m kidding, Boston College-Maryland.