Picking and choosing: staring at a smorgasbord of 28 bowl games can be daunting, so sink your teeth into these storylines and matchups first

Sporting News, The, Dec 22, 2003 by Tom Dienhart

2 Cotton: Mississippi vs. Oklahoma State. More touchdowns: Eli Manning throwing or Rashaun Woods catching?

3 San Francisco: Boston College vs. Colorado State. A hard game to figure. Anything could happen.

4 Sun: Minnesota vs. Oregon. Each played its most exciting game against Michigan. That's sort of like a tie, huh?

5 Liberty: Southern Mississippi vs. Utah. The score figures to be in the teens--at least in regulation. This one probably will come down to a turnover or a kick.--S.G.

Worst rematch Orange Bowl, Florida State vs. Miami

The bowl honchos are supposed to provide compelling matchups we rarely--if ever--get to see. Joe Fan gets a bellyful of Miami-Florida State each fall. It's like eating steak every day. It sounds like a good idea--until you get to Day 20.

All the "wide right" stuff has been chronicled to death. No more shots of Bobby Bowden and his silly sunglasses. No more images of posing Canes. Making this even more of a yawner is the fact the two schools are scheduled to open the 2004 season against each other in the bigger and better ACC.

It's going to take a lot of ketchup to choke down this reheated and overdone matchup.

Best bowls to miss

1 New Orleans: Memphis vs. North Texas. All right, pal, where were you on the night of December 16? Because that's when this one was played.

2 Silicon Valley: Fresno State vs. UCLA. The Bruins lost their last four, finished .500 and still got a bid. They don't deserve to be watched.

3 Motor City: Bowling Green vs. Northwestern. Between them, three run-ins with Miami (Ohio) this year, three unspeakable beatdowns.

4 Music City: Auburn vs. Wisconsin. Every now and then, there's an exciting matchup of five-loss teams--in college basketball.

5 Humanitarian: Georgia Tech vs. Tulsa. Hands down, the unsightliest football game ever to be scheduled in January.--S.G.

Best quarterback matchup Purdue's Kyle Orton vs. Georgia's David Greene

One guy chucks it righthanded; the other is a lefty. One has mutton chops; the other has no chops. One hails from the Midwest; the other calls the South home. One guy plays in the Big Ten; the other toils in the SEC.

But Purdue's Kyle Orton and Georgia's David Greene do have this in common: In the Capital One Bowl, these juniors will be the co-stars of the best quarterback matchup of the bowl season.

Orton lost his job last season after suffering a concussion. But given a second chance late in the year, he seized it. This season, his combination of keen decision-making and a cannon right arm have made him one of the nation's top players.

It's hard to believe Greene once was fighting D.J. Shockley for the Bulldogs' job. He even had to share some playing time with Shockley in 2002 despite being the SEC Freshman of the Year the previous season. Those days are done; Greene has cemented his status as the biggest man on Georgia's campus. He plays with a maturity beyond his years and has a knack for throwing the deep ball.

Best comeback stories

Welcome back, Memphis. It has been 32 years since you've gone bowling. Since that trip to something called the Pasadena Bowl, the Tigers have gone through seven coaches. But Tommy West finally broke through with a hard-edged ground team that has folks on Beale Street talking about more than just barbecue and blues.