Gator Bowl ranked as second-best bowl of 2023 postseason

When 42 combined points are scored in the fourth quarter of a football game, something crazy must have happened. That was the case for this season’s Gator Bowl, which saw No. 22 Clemson take down Kentucky 38-35 on Dec. 29. The Wildcats led 21-10 going into the final period, but gave up 28 points to the Tigers while scoring 14 of its own before losing the game in soul-crushing fashion in the final 20 seconds.

For the Big Blue Nation, it was a tough loss to swallow. Kentucky had every opportunity to come away with the win, but untimely turnovers and mistakes in the fourth quarter cost the ‘Cats. All this being said, it was still a hell of a game to watch — especially from an outsider’s perspective.

Over at CBS Sports, Tom Fornelli ranked all 41 bowl games of the 2023 postseason from best to worst. To little surprise, the Rose Bowl matchup between No. 1 Michigan and No. 4 Alabama (technically in 2024) which saw the Wolverines win 27-20 in overtime, was Fornelli’s top-ranked bowl game. But guess who he had at No. 2: Kentucky-Clemson in the Gator Bowl.

“I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll just begin with the record,” Fornelli wrote. “There were 42 points scored in the fourth quarter of this game, more than in any fourth quarter in bowl game history — and that was just part of what went down in the Gator Bowl. There were eight lead changes, including four in the fourth quarter, as both teams kept trading haymakers. It was everything you could want from a bowl game played on a Friday morning in Jacksonville.”

There were 41 bowl games played this bowl season. I ranked them all before they were played, and now that they're finished, I've ranked them again.https://t.co/3gRcrRP3Ci

— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) January 2, 2024

Prior to all of the bowl games, Fornelli predicted the rankings for all 41 contests too. He had the Gator Bowl at No. 21 in the pregame rankings, but even without an edible mascot, it was easily one of the more exciting postseason bouts of the entire month.

And thank goodness the Gator Bowl provided some fireworks, too. Fornelli noted a handful of stats in his article that indicate just how boring some of the bowls were this season. The average margin of victory in all 41 games was 16.1 points. There were more three-score finishes (15) than one-score finishes (14). Fornelli ranked the Orange Bowl — which featured No. 6 Georgia and No. 5 Florida State — as the worst bowl of them all after UGA smacked FSU by 60 points.

There’s still one more game left before the 2023 college football season officially comes to a close. No. 1 Michigan will take on No. 2 Washington in the national championship game this Monday. But unless this one goes to overtime or includes a 40-point fourth quarter, it’ll be tough to unseat the Gator Bowl.