During this first bowl week of 2022, we reviewed our bowl schedule. We made a decision to cut back from three bowl games to two. The announcement of East Carolina (7-5) against Coastal Carolina (9-3) would not be worth the time spent. Chanticleer QB Grayson McCall went down to an injury in Week Eleven. After that, James Madison clobbered them, 44-7, in their last game. In the Sun Belt Championship a week later, Troy took them down, 45-26. The Chants aren’t the same without McCall at QB. Since then, McCall announced he’s going into transfer portal.
Evidently, he thinks he can pick up more NIL money elsewhere while showing the pros what he can do against a higher level of competition. For us, we don’t see a competitive TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl. We’ll pass. We’ll stick with the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis where 6-6 Kansas will clash with 6-6 Arkansas.
After that, we committed to the dud in Music City. There, Iowa with no offense meets Kentucky with opt-outs on offense including QB Will Levis. If anybody needs a good bowl game to help his draft value, it’s Kiper’s favorite, Levis. We saw the Wildcats lose to South Carolina in Week Seven, 24-14. Levis sat out with an injury and Frosh QB Kaiya Sheron started. The UK offensive performance struggled to say the least.
Satterfield Bowl in blustery Boston in First Bowl Week 2022
Former HC Scott Satterfield of Louisville sat on the hot seat going into 2022. Instead, he led his Cardinals to a 7-5 record. In First Bowl week 2022, Louisville heads to Boston to take on 9-3 Cincinnati in the Fenway Wasabi Bowl. The Bearcats former HC Luke Fickell resigned at the end of their season to take over downtrodden Wisconsin. As a matter of fact, he and most of his Cincy staff will be coaching the Badgers in the upcoming Guaranteed Rate Bowl against Oklahoma State. There needs to be some rules against this.
Stepping in for Cincinnati – Satterfield. We don’t think he’s coaching in this, but it doesn’t get much crazier than this. Coach’s former team and future team meet in a bowl this same season. All we can say is we will never be crazy enough to venture to Boston to attend a bowl game at Fenway Park. The opponents share the same sideline. What a reward! 33 degrees forecasted there. Maybe snow. We’ll never go!
UIW’s GJ Kinne to take over at Texas State
It didn’t take Texas State long to get a commitment from HC GJ Kinne of incarnate Word. He’ll transfer from San António to San Marcos for the 2023 season. We give Kinne and TSU credit for allowing Kinne to continue to coach the Cardinals while still competing in the FCS playoffs. Kinne, a former Tulsa QB who eventually played as a back-up in the NFL has what the Bobcat program wanted. His resume includes head coaching experience, longtime Texas football connections, and winning ways.
With family connections at TSU, we look forward to seeing Kinne make the Bobcats more competitive in the Sun Belt. He’ll bring a pass-oriented strategy with him that has averaged 51.5 ppg this season at UIW. They just lost the FCS semi-final game to powerhouse North Dakota State, 35-32. Looks like fun times ahead for a TSU program. Hopefully, they get into the mix to compete for prime FBS talent in the Lone Star State.
Cure Bowl – good cause and a message for change
The Cure Bowl on Friday pitted two great 2022 champions from Group of Five conferences. No. 24 Troy defeated No. 25 UTSA, 18-12. The proceeds from Cure Bowl benefit cancer research – a tremendous benefactor. To us though, the match-up also indicates another “cure” to improve college football. Instead of seeing these two very good football teams coming in from the Group of Five rated at No. 24 and No. 25 play one another, let’s add some spice to bowl season. Let’s give the Group of Five teams like these opportunities to show they can be competitive with Power Five teams in general.
We prefer to see these two matched up against two Power Five opponents. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to see the top teams from the Group of Five play at least a third or fourth-ranked team among the Power Fives? The problem comes from bowl contracts pre-arranging match-ups limited between two Power Five conferences. Boring. No. four SEC vs No. three Big Ten or No. five ACC vs No. 5 Big Twelve. Bowl committees try to draw fan bases from big schools to come to their cities. UTSA has 35,000 students. Troy State, 16,000. Plus, alumni, of course. The Cure Bowl filled a Friday afternoon TV slot to start the bowl season. Why not invite these two later on for some prime-time action against Power Five teams?
Playoffs help, but…
Of course, we hope to see the new playoff format with twelve teams improve some of these match-ups. However, would No, 24 and No. 25 get a shot at playing in one of these games? If not, we propose that some other major bowls open up their invitation process to invite top teams remaining among all conferences rather than limited to members of two specific conferences. This “cure” would add more interest and incite more competitiveness among all 134 FBS (or more) teams.
Refs almost bumble Bahamas Bowl
Did you see what we saw in the first game of First Bowl week of 2022? Unless someone in the media made note of it since, it seemed to get swept under the rug In UAB’s 24-20 win over Miami (OH). The last play ended with the RedHawks nearly pulling off the win on the last play. What we saw on the previous play, the UAB Dragons got penalized for a facemask to gain 15 more yards. When we watched the replay, the only facemask we saw was by the Miami QB as the UAB defender took him out of bounds. The refs should have walked off 15 yards against Miami, not UAB. Did anyone else see it that way? Glad the RedHawks didn’t win with the advantage of an errant call by the refs.
Internal Navy battle
Hard for us to weigh in on this, until more facts come out regarding the firing of HC Ken Niumatalolo after the loss to Army. A faction of Navy fans calls for the dismissal of Navy AD Chet Gladchuk. They insist he handled the situation disrespectfully for one thing. Many also point out the disadvantages Niumatalolo had relative to the other academies after Covid-19. Others may know more than we do regarding this, so we’ll wait for things to shake out. As most know, the coach did a great job with winning records and a 6-5 bowl record to start. However, since the Covid-19 season where he admittedly did not have his team game ready at the start of the season, he’s recorded an 11-23 record since.
To us, he and the program seemed to lack the energy and enthusiasm before Covid. We admit, we disliked the AD’s move previously overstepping Niumatalolo to fire the OC Jasper Irvin. Coach Ken went to his defense to get Green reinstated as QB coach. To that, we see that as being a major weakness in Annapolis the last few years. There are two sides to every story. We think someone, particularly the Superintendent of USNA, needs to have a sit-down with the parties involved to get this cleared up. There’s no way Navy can be successful without the triple option to compete at the FBS level. Hopefully, recruiting continues with the existing staff to get the players they need. In the meantime, the administration needs to sort out the football leadership situation quickly.
Coach search by Juniata Alma Mater dear
We had a great conversation with Juniata AD Nikki Ayers, class of ’06, regarding JC’s search for a new football coach after a disastrous 2022 season. Nikki took the position several months ago after being at Claremont Mudd Scripps as Associate Athletic Director for the D3 school on California. She heads a team of a dozen other people associated with the school from President James Troha, to National Champion Women’s Volleyball Coach Heather Pavlik, to academic department heads, former players, and student athletes among them. She’s had close to 100 applications to consider thus far. The search team is focused on head coaching experience, leadership capabilities for both football and life, and the development of a better strategic recruiting strategy. Not there the last time the previous coach was selected, there was no recollection of how that decision was finalized. However, she says there will be more transparency now.
We wish her the best in coming up with better leadership for a program whose players basically make up over 15% of the student male population at the school. With legacies at D3 Juniata such as late, great NFL HC Chuck Knox, former late, HC Walt Nadzak, the inaugural 1973 Stagg Bowl team (despite losing), and a 1956 Tangerine Bowl among many great teams, Juniata deserves to have a competitive team back on the playing field.
Landmark, Ho!
In 2023, we hope to see a fresh start in the newly formed Landmark Conference. It consists of seven schools comprised of both current Centennial members and some new foes. The new conference will get an automatic bid to the D3 playoffs. The Landmark also signed an agreement with the Old Dominion Athletic Conference for two post season bowl to be known as the Chesapeake Classic. Two non-D3 playoff participants from each conference will square of in No. 1 vs No. 2 games. We look forward to seeing who the next coach will be at JC, and we look forward to rebuilding the Eagles into a competitive D3 program.
Championship Season in First Bowl week 2022
North Central of Illinois (14-0) held off Mount Union (13-1) to win the D3 Football Championship in the Stagg Bowl played in Annapolis, Maryland Friday night, 28-21. The Cardinals took a 21-0 lead with 14:46 left in the game. However, the Purple Raiders got back to within seven on their next two possessions. The Cards scored again with 1:24 left. The Raiders countered again with 00:30 left to settle this score in an exciting final period. For North Central, they claimed their second championship in three years. They played in front of only 3,231 fans. Too bad. These teams play their hearts out just as much at the FBS teams do.
D2 today, Colorado School of Mines vs Ferris State of Michigan in McKinney, Texas
FCS teams determined in First Bowl Week 2022
North Dakota State (12-2) claimed half the final bracket last night with a 35-32 win over Incarnate Word (12-2). Today, No. 1 seed South Dakota State (12-1) takes on No. 4 Montana State (12-1). The winner of this takes on NDSU on January 8 at Frisco, Texas. We may have to think about capping off our season there this season. Check back with us for our Second Bowl Week 2022!
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Ed. by Steve Koreivo, Author of Tales from the Tailgate: From the Fan who’s seen ‘em all! If you like our stories, read all our tales when we saw all 120 FBS teams (at the time of publication) play for the first time. Or, start thinking Christmas gifts for your favorite college football fans! We also encourage you and whoever you buy for to submit a review for us. Please click on the title or copy of the cover on our right sidebar to go to our Amazon page to buy and review. Thanks!
