The Red Zone Report | Red Zone Rewind: Bowl Notes by the Numbers.

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Red Zone Rewind: Bowl Notes by the Numbers.

By Eddie Griffin ⋅ January 8, 2008 ⋅ Subscribe to The Red Zone Report

So, the bowl season and the 2007 college football season have come to an end, and it’s time to reflect a little on the past few weeks.

I know the outcome of tonight’s BCS national title game wasn’t a surprise, and that there are some that figured the score would more similar to the 41-14 pasting Ohio State received against Florida last season.

I also know that all but one of the BCS bowls this season weren’t close, with Georgia routing Hawaii by 31, USC over Illinois by 32, and West Virginia hanging 48 on Oklahoma, and LSU comfortably taking care of business against Ohio State. And, I know that the results the polls and the BCS churn out don’t mean jack, even when the national title is on the line. Nebraska’s 62-24 destruction of Florida in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, and the Gators’ 52-20 throttling of Florida St. the next year in the Sugar Bowl come to mind.

But, given all of the excitement that we had this season, with all of the thrillers and close games, that it’s a little bit of a letdown for the last game of the season to be the complete opposite.

Unfortunately, it’s starting to become a trend.

Hopefully there are some people who have DVDs of the 2006 Rose Bowl, the epic shootout between USC and Texas, or Ohio St.’s double-OT win over the juggernaut that was Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl (I vaguely remember someone named Maurice Clarett running for two touchdowns in that game…I wonder whatever happened to him?).

Those are the two closest national championship games in the 10-year history of the BCS. There’ve been a few good ones in the rest, like the Michael Vick and Peter Warrick show in the 2000 Sugar Bowl (and the two games - ‘99 Fiesta and ‘04 Sugar - that came down to defensive stops at the end), but there’ve also been quite a few blowouts and snoozers as well.

1998: Tennessee 23, Florida St. 16 (1999 Fiesta Bowl)
1999: Florida St. 46, Virginia Tech 29 (2000 Sugar)
2000: Oklahoma 13, Florida St. 2 (2001 Orange)
2001: Miami 37, Nebraska 14 (2002 Rose)
2002: Ohio St. 31, Miami 24, 2OT (2003 Fiesta)
2003: LSU 21, Oklahoma 14 (2004 Sugar)
2004: USC 55, Oklahoma 19 (2005 Orange)
2005: Texas 41, USC 38 (2006 Rose)
2006: Florida 41, Ohio St. 14
2007: LSU 38, Ohio St. 24

I already pointed out in an earlier post about what Oklahoma needs to do until they’re going to fully show up to their BCS bowl games, and the same needs to be said for Ohio St., who has been overmatched and overwhelmed in the last two seasons. Both have a ways to go to match Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles, who have lost a record five BCS bowls in six appearances, though like FSU, Oklahoma is on a four-game BCS losing streak.

- After the #1 team won the first four BCS title games, the #2 team has now won the national title game in five of the last six seasons, with the only exception being USC’s blowout win over Oklahoma.

- Since the BCS started in 1998, at least one of the teams who competed in the previous championship game was back the next year all but two times - 2002 Rose and 2005 Orange. However, on both occasions, the team who won the game had an argument for being there the previous year, as Miami was edged out by Florida St. (who they’d beaten) in the 2000 season, and USC was the odd man out in the 2003 season.

- It was a pretty high-scoring bowl season, as at least one team scored 30 points or more in 21 of the 32 bowl games, with teams scoring 40+ points in 14 games. Last year, the totals were 18 and 9.

- Despite the lack of closeness in the BCS bowls, things were pretty tight for the majority of the bowl season. 18 bowl games were decided by a touchdown or less, with seven decided by three points or less.Last season, 12 bowls were decided by seven points or less, though 11 of those were decided by three points or less, besting this season’s total.

- There were 33 100+ yard rushers and 12 300+ yard passers. Tony Temple of Missouri led all rushers with 281 yards and four touchdowns in the Tigers’ 38-7 Cotton Bowl win over Arkansas, with Rutgers’ Ray Rice right there with him with 280 yards and four scores in a 52-30 win over Ball St. in the International Bowl on Saturday.

Purdue’s Curtis Painter led all passers with 546 yards through the air in their 51-48 thriller over Central Michigan in the Motor City Bowl, which was the highest-scoring of the 32 bowl games.

There weren’t any 200-yard receivers, but Ball St.’s Dante Love led the way with 13 catches and 169 yards against the Scarlet Knights. In six games, a QB threw for 300 or more yards and his running back(s) ran for 100 or more - Chad Henne (372) and Mike Hart (129), Kentucky’s Andre’ Woodson (358) and Rafael Little (152), New Mexico’s Donovan Porterie (354) and Paul Baker (166), Tulsa’s Paul Smith (312) and Tarrion Adams (112), Rutgers’ Mike Teel (304) and Rice (280), and Oklahoma St.’s Zac Robinson (302) and Dantrell Savage (100).

Smith and Adams helped Tulsa hang 63 points on Bowling Green in a 56-point win in the GMAC Bowl - the most points scored by one team in the bowl season, and the largest margin of victory. Speaking of Smith, while Tim Tebow got a lot of attention for his monster numbers this season, Smith set an NCAA record with 14 straight 300-yard passing games, and finished his season with 5,047 yards passing and 47 touchdowns, and added 13 more scores on the ground for the nation’s top offense.

Four duos rushed for 100 yards or more - Oregon St.‘s Yvenson Bernard (177) and James Rodgers (115), West Virginia’s Pat White (150) and Noel Devine (110), Southern Cal’s Joe McKnight (125) and Stafon Johnson (104), and Air Force’s Shaun Carney (108) and Jim Ollis (104).

Speaking of James Rodgers, he has a brother named Jacquizz who will be joining him at OSU next season, after running for more than 7,000 yards and set a Texas state record for career touchdowns in only three seasons. [Edit: To be completely accurate, Rodgers ran for 8,246 yards and scored 136 total touchdowns in his high school career.]

- LSU joins Minnesota as the only two-loss champion in college football history. The Golden Gophers won the last of their six national championships in 1960, when an 8-2 season saw them crowned AP and UPI champs, with Ole Miss and Washington also claiming titles in other polls.

You could also throw Colorado’s 1990 team in there as well, though if their second loss was in the books, they wouldn‘t have sniffed the national title. The Buffaloes should have been 10-2-1, but thanks to the infamous fifth-down they got against Missouri, they got a chance to share the pie with 11-0-1 Georgia Tech.

- LSU and Ohio St. were two of 19 teams to finish the season with 10 or more wins. Four of the 19 came from the Big 12, in 12-1 Kansas, 12-2 Missouri, 11-3 Oklahoma, and 10-3 Texas. Another 18 teams finished with nine wins, with the Big 10 having four nine-win teams, in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn St., who were all 9-4.

Complete Bowl Schedule and Results
Final Standings for All I-A (or FBS, rather) Teams