The College Football Playoff selection committee meets this week to rank teams in its Top 25 for the first time. The task is tall after conference races shifted significantly from fairly straightforward to overly complicated.
That naturally has an impact on many of the bowl games outside of the playoff, from the prominent warm-weather games around New Year’s Day all the way down to the very first games just after the regular season concludes in mid-December. While much of the oxygen in college football will focus on just the 12 teams who make the CFP field, that shouldn’t obscure some of the great stories where teams are eyeing their first bowl game in several years.
