Here on this championship Saturday, let’s be reminded that there is, indeed, other football being played besides the SEC.
Immediately after defeating SMU 17-7 to win the Conference USA Championship, Central Florida was invited to compete in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, where they will likely play Georgia. It is the second C-USA championship for the Knights, with the first coming in 2007 where UCF ultimately lost to Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl.
SMU will stay at home for their bowl game (literally) in the Armed Forces Bowl against -- who else -- Army. The game will be played in SMU’s home stadium due to construction and renovations to TCU’s Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Tulsa will take their high-powered offense to the Hawaii Bowl to take on -- who else (again) -- Hawaii.
UTEP will play BYU in the New Mexico Bowl. Southern Miss will play a Big East team in the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl (yay?), and East Carolina will play an ACC opponent in the Military Bowl (not to be confused with the aforementioned Armed Forces Bowl).
As a side note: the fact we’re now regurgitating bowl names is a strong indicator that there are, in fact, too many bowl games.