Best of 2025 college football bowl games: Mascots, mayhem, more - ESPN

After five months of college football, the season is down to two teams and one game. But as we wait for Miami and Indiana to meet in their College Football Playoff title throwdown, it is time for our annual lookback on the postseason contests that led up to this one.

All of them.

Since Dec. 13, when the Cricket Celebration Bowl and Bucked Up LA Bowl kicked off 2,200 miles apart, this great nation has been covered up in bowl games. And those bowl games have been covered up in mayonnaise, eggnog, baked beans and Frosted Flakes.

If you don't like fun, stop reading now. If you don't love college football, stop reading now. And if you are one of those Ebenezer Scrooge/mall-parking-lot-road-rage Karens who spent their holidays trying to convince the rest of us that bowl games are outdated, stop… well, OK, you probably already stopped reading anyway. And that's cool with us. Because it's time for our annual celebration of all that is right with this greatest of sports at a time when so many are so obsessed with what is wrong.

Welcome to the 2025-26 edition of Best of the Bowls.

In the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, Rainbow Warriors starting quarterback Micah Alejado threw for 274 yards and three TDs, and rushed for another 33 yards, but suffered a hard hit in the closing seconds of the game with his team trailing Cal 31-28. Backup QB Luke Weaver, who hadn't played since mid-September, came off the bench and threw a 22-yard TD pass with 10 seconds remaining to win the game 35-31.

Timmy Chang. Loyal to the soil. <a href=«https://twitter.com/hashtag/BRADDAHHOOD?src=hash&ref_src=» https:>#BRADDAHHOOD

x <a href=«https://twitter.com/CoachTimmyChang?ref_src=» https:>@CoachTimmyChang pic.twitter.com/9nRmqJpsEy

The Tigers QB threw for 267 yards