Best and worst from Saturday’s bowls: Ole Miss reaches new heights, Florida State plumbs new depths

The final Saturday of the college football season is in the books. From Ole Miss’ setting a program record for wins to Florida State making the wrong kind of history in its Orange Bowl loss, this is the best and worst of the day.

BEST

Ole Miss: The Rebels are partying tonight like it’s … 2023? Their 38-25 win over Penn State in the Peach Bowl gave Ole Miss 11 wins for the first time in program history. 

With quarterback Jaxson Dart, who finished with 379 yards and three touchdowns on Saturday, potentially returning in 2024 for his senior year and an impressive incoming transfer portal class, Ole Miss should be a strong contender to make it into the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff next season. 

WORST

Florida State: Geez, Florida State. We understand you’re still grieving the CFP snub, but you didn’t have to embarrass yourself on national television. 

The Seminoles were laughed out of the Orange Bowl by halftime of their 63-3 loss to Georgia, the largest margin of defeat in bowl game history. The Bulldogs, which had a bigger gripe than the Seminoles of being left out of the playoff, didn’t spend the past month pouting and threatening lawsuits. 

Instead, Georgia returned to work and showed how championship-worthy teams respond to adversity. Florida State should take notes.

BEST

Georgia: Teams might stop wanting to play the Bulldogs in a bowl game after Saturday’s shellacking. Combined with last year’s CFP championship game blowout over TCU, Georgia has outscored its past two bowl-game opponents 128-10. 

Against Florida State, Georgia had 36 first downs and 675 yards of offense, including 376 rushing yards. Defensively, the Bulldogs forced held the Seminoles to 209 total yards and forced four turnovers.

WORST

Auburn: The Tigers’ ugly 31-13 Music City Bowl loss to Maryland was the third consecutive loss to end the season for Auburn after they began the season 6-4. Also included in that stretch was a dreadful 31-10 home loss to Conference USA New Mexico State and the heartbreaking 27-24 Iron Bowl loss to Alabama. 

The bowl defeat also gives the program a third-consecutive losing season, its longest stretch since 1975-77.

BEST

Maryland: All Mike Locksley does is win bowl games. The Terrapins full-time head coach for the past five seasons (he also served as interim head coach for six games in 2015) has won three consecutive bowls, including the Pinstripe Bowl in 2021 and Duke’s Mayo Bowl in 2022, the longest streak in program history.

WORST

Penn State: The Nittany Lions once again failed to show up for a big game in their loss to Ole Miss. Head coach James Franklin is 4-16 as Penn State head coach against Michigan and Ohio State, the Big Ten’s best teams, and Saturday’s result showed the program isn’t even on the level of the third (possibly fourth) best SEC team.

BEST/WORST

CFP committee: On the one hand, Florida State’s blowout loss justified the committee’s decision to drop the Seminoles out of the top four of the final rankings. On the other, the result revealed the thoughtlessness with which it manufactured the last Top 25 of the year. 

Did the committee seriously think Florida State — ranked fifth — was better than Georgia — ranked sixth? Also, how could anyone who watched Saturday’s game say with a straight face that the Bulldogs aren’t one of the four best teams in the country? 

The CFP committee, that’s who, proving how unserious it truly is.