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  • Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior WriterJan 4, 2024, 09:05 AM ET

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    • Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
    • 2-time Sports Emmy winner
    • 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

“I’m up to my a– in bowls, bowls, all types bowls.
Chips and mints and seashell bowls.
My mom’s got bowls for everything.
Potpourri and nuts and everything.
Bowl on the toilet.
Bowl on the shelf.
Bowl of M&M’s and I can help myself …”

— “Back Home Baller,” Leslie Jones

With all due respect to Mom, no one loves bowls more than us. Since my beloved Myrtle Beach Bowl kicked off on the teal turf of Conway, South Carolina, three weeks ago, we’ve been bowling like Pete Weber, from New Orleans and New Mexico to the Big Apple and San Francisco. A Santa’s bag of college football filled with everything from touchdown passes and spiffy new uniforms to mind-blowing comebacks and intestine-blowing servings of sideline french fries dipped in mayonnaise.

Even for us, the folks who live for bowls, it can be a lot to track. After all, there were 42 games played over a span of 16 days. So now, as we await the last contest on the calendar Monday night, here’s a look back at the best and worst of the 2023-24 bowl season.

Yes, we are aware the Rose Bowl went to OT. Heck, I was standing on the sideline. However, when it comes to pure entertainment, it is difficult to top the show put on by the Tigers and Wildcats, who slugged through the first half but then scored a combined 42 points in the fourth quarter with five lead changes, including three in the final 4:20, ultimately won by Clemson with 17 seconds remaining.

If history looks back on the Dawgs’ demolition of TCU at the start of 2023 as the moment that spurred College Football Playoff expansion, then perhaps it will also remember their last game of the same year as the contest that validated that expansion. There’s no question Georgia deserved a spot among the nation’s best teams in the postseason, and there’s also no question Florida State’s mass exodus after the Seminoles were left out was a result of the same feelings. Either way, the Orange Bowl was over in 10 minutes and we were all forced to watch Hallmark holiday movies with our families whom we’d been ignoring all month.

Best bowl performance: Jason Bean, QB, Kansas

In the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, aka the Hey, Didn’t You Both Used To Be In The Bottom 10 All The Time? Bowl, between Kansas and UNLV, the Jayhawks quarterback threw for 449 yards and six touchdowns after throwing only a dozen TD passes during the regular season. He locked up the 49-36 win over the Rebels even with a trio of INTs and a whopping 18 team penalties, including four personal fouls, adding up to 210 yards. He also added 21 yards rushing. It was the best holiday season performance for a Mr. Bean this side of the department store clerk in “Love Actually.”

Worst bowl performance by someone not named Florida State: Cure Bowl — Miami (Ohio) and Appalachian State

The RedHawks fell to the Mountaineers 13-9 in the midst of a Noah’s ark kind of rain. The teams combined for 13 fumbles, the most in any bowl game since the 1977 Independence Bowl. In related news, the football from the 2023 Cure Bowl declared independence from gloves.

Most explosive bowl performance: Independence Bowl

Speaking of the I-Bowl, that game ended with more fireworks than New Year’s Eve at Disney World. To be clear, that’s not a metaphor. I’m talking about actual fireworks.

Best bowl perk: Charlotte Motor Speedway NASCAR hot laps, Duke’s Mayo Bowl

Yeah, I know, I write this every year. But it’s still true.

Most meta bowl perk: bowl bowlers bowling

This “Inception”-like trend started early as the Myrtle Beach Bowl teams went bowling. Then it peaked with the Military Bowl presented by GoBowling.com. Speaking of the Military Bowl …

Best name from a bowl: Slade Nagle

Nagle was handed the interim head coach reins for the Military Bowl after Tulane head coach Willie Fritz bolted for Houston. Not only does Slade Nagle’s name sound like it belongs to someone who just suplexed Brock Lesnar to win the WWE world heavyweight championship, the dude is giant, has a fire-red beard and used to be the quarterbacks coach for the Dodge City Community College Conquistadors. When “Yellowstone” is done, I fully expect Taylor Sheridan to make a movie about Slade Nagle.

Best reminder that rivalries never stop: Jerry Kill’s post-New Mexico Bowl rant

The only aspect of bowl season more explosive than the Independence Bowl’s arsenal was Kill’s temper. The head coach of the New Mexico State Aggies took umbrage with what he believed was unfair treatment from bowl host and archrival New Mexico and used some curse words to express those feelings. The Rio Grande Rivalry never sleeps! In his tirade, Kill threatened to stop coaching and go to Mexico to “drink margaritas.” The next week he indeed stepped down. No word yet on the margarita situation.

Biggest temper WTH: Eastern Michigan after the 68 Ventures Bowl

EMU’s Korey Hernandez interrupted South Alabama’s post-victory alma mater moment when he ran across the field and decked Jags defensive back Jamarrien Burt. A brawl broke out as the band played on. Hernandez has since apologized. In the end, anyone ever thinking about fighting needs to thank Hernandez. Why? He gave us all a reminder that no matter how mad you are, you never start a fight when surrounded by 60 guys wearing the same uniform as the guy that you just sucker punched!

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Postgame fight breaks out after sucker punch from Eastern Michigan player

Eastern Michigan’s Korey Hernandez runs across the field and sucker punches South Alabama’s Jamarrien Burt in the back of the head.

Best postgame food bath: egg nog, Holiday Bowl

Thank or blame the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, but postgame food showers are now the postseason norm, from french fries and Frosted Flakes to UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor, after being asked about his memories from the Roadrunners’ win over Marshall in the Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl, saying, “I’ll always remember that coffee running down my back.” But the new kid on the supermarket (dump the) bucket list has emerged from one of the oldest games, the Holiday Bowl, which unapologetically now dumps “nog on the noggin'” of the winning coach. When they posted a slo-mo video of Lincoln Riley’s splashdown, it ended up coming off like a scene from a “Saw” movie.

Best postgame food bath homage: Duke’s Mayo Bowl

If you are mad that we slighted the OG water bucket food dump ceremony, don’t worry. These West Virginia fans have you covered. They also have their kids covered. In mayo.

Best use of food-related prop: the turnover kabob

Arizona upset Oklahoma in the Valero Alamo Bowl thanks in no small part to six takeaways — three fumbles and three interceptions. After every turnover, the Wildcats stack another flattened football with their opponents’ logo onto a cactus-shaped sword.

Worst sound: Gronk’s anthem

If you think that nog audio was bad, then whatever you do, DO NOT hit play on Rob Gronkowski singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Starco Brands LA Bowl Hosted By Gronk.

The E. King Gill 12th Man award: Sam Mathews, Texas A&M

Just two years ago, Mathews was tailgating with his buddies in College Station when they convinced him to try out for the Aggies football team. Not only did he make the team but when he was pressed into service because of a flu outbreak in 2022, he recorded six tackles against Florida. So this season the team decided to bestow upon him the coveted No. 12, in honor of the school’s legendary 12th Man tradition. When these post-Jimbo Fisher Aggies showed up shorthanded for the Texas Bowl due to opt-outs, Mathews started. And even in a loss, his interception will go down in A&M 12th Man lore.

Best comeback: Western Kentucky, Famous Toastery Bowl

The Hilltoppers trailed Old Dominion by 28 points in the opening minutes of the second quarter and were down 21 at the start of the fourth, but came back to tie the game with 19 seconds remaining and won in OT. They were led to the toasted promised land by quarterback Caden Veltkamp, who had already decided to transfer at season’s end after being told by WKU coaches he should move to tight end. Instead, he came off the bench in Charlotte to throw for 383 yards and five TDs and was carried off the field by his teammates, a la Rudy. Now he’ll be back on the Hill overlooking Bowling Green, Kentucky, next season.

Best comeback of a different sort: Davis Brin, QB, Georgia Southern

Brin won the Myrtle Beach Bowl MVP in 2021 as the quarterback at Tulsa. Then he turned in a fantastic (albeit losing) effort in the 2023 Myrtle Beach Bowl as QB of Georgia Southern, throwing for 350 yards and two touchdowns against Ohio. This marks the greatest return performance in Myrtle Beach since my high school classmate Dirty McCall won back-to-back shag dancing contests at the Magic Attic and earned two free airbrushed T-shirts and a bucket of saltwater taffy.

You the real MVP of bowl season MVP award: the Pop-Tart

The legacy of edible mascots during bowl season goes back to the Blooming Onion, who used to stalk the sidelines of the Outback Bowl, which is now the decidedly less greasy ReliaQuest Bowl. But with the greatest respect to Spuddy Buddy, the bushy-eyed jar of Duke’s Mayo, the Cheez-It who made it very clear he was not to be eaten, or any other would-be delicious furry football hero, no one stole hearts and headlines like the Pop-Tart. It danced, it performed, it descended into a giant toaster and was cooked so that it could be devoured by the Pop-Tart Bowl winning Kansas State Wildcats. RIP Pop-Tart. Thank you for your bowl season service.

Until next year, keep on bowling, y’all.

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NASCAR, IndyCar legend Tony Stewart shares his newfound passion for drag racing

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2 hours ago

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April 30, 2024

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NASCAR, IndyCar legend Tony Stewart shares his newfound passion for drag racing

  • Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior WriterApr 30, 2024, 09:35 AM ET

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    • Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
    • 2-time Sports Emmy winner
    • 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

CONCORD, North Carolina — A guy in a Home Depot t-shirt, a woman in an Eldora Speedway hoodie and a kid in a Dodge drag racing hat walk up to a bar.

No, that’s not the start of a joke. It’s an image of reality. It was at Charlotte’s zMax Dragway, site of the NHRA’s fifth event of the season, the 4-Wide Nationals, held earlier this month on a 1,000-foot straight-line show palace built in the shadow of the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

It was on that adjacent 1.5-mile oval that Tony Stewart won a NASCAR Cup Series race and the NASCAR All-Star Race, completed the second half of a pair of Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 one-day “Double Duty” marathons, and won a pair of pole positions in an IndyCar. The NASCAR Hall of Famer’s Stewart-Haas Racing HQ is located one exit up the highway from zMax and he has even fielded wining cars on the four-tenths-mile clay oval dirt track that sits adjacent to the drag strip.

But now the one they call “Smoke” is smoking the tires on an 11,000-horsepower NHRA Top Fuel dragster. Sure, racing is racing and Stewart has excelled at every racing discipline America has to offer, a series of crossover moves matched only by the likes of A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. But drag racing, the one area those legends never dared to wander for more than a one-off event, is another planet. Here, races last four seconds instead of 400 miles and left turns are very, very bad.

Walking through Nitro Alley with a man who has infamously crashed through his near-53 years with all the delicateness of a wounded crocodile, one witnesses a Tony Stewart rarely seen in the wild. He smiles. He signs autographs. He answers questions. He is downright … happy?

“Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” Stewart joked as he snaked his way through the fans strolling the midway, taking advantage of the NHRA’s fan access, allowing them to stand right next to the machines as they are being built and tuned, soaking up clouds of bitter nitrous oxide as if they’re sampling department store perfume samples.

“Pretty much everything in my motorsports world was somewhat under the same bubble, just some things were off to the side, some were somewhere in the middle. But they all had aspects that were very similar,” explained the only man to win championships in USAC, Indy Car and NASCAR, all while making countless appearances at short tracks during the summer nights in between his big league races.

“But this sport, this is very different. Drag racing, it’s on Fantasy Island over here. Every day I feel like when I go through the gate there’s going to be Tattoo and his white tuxedo going, ‘Welcome to the races today!'”

He points to that trio of fans wearing the Home Depot/Eldora/NHRA merchandise, the ones waiting for him to walk over and autograph their gear. When Stewart works those ropes, he likes to don his darkest pair of sunglasses, allowing him to discreetly scan the crowd while he chats and scribbles signatures. As he describes it, he drops another old-school TV reference.

“Every time I go out to the rope to sign autographs, it’s like ‘This is Your Life’ because there will be somebody out there with a T-shirt or a die-cast car from something else I did, whether it’s NASCAR or IndyCar or a hat from a short track you’ve probably never even heard of before. That’s especially true when we are here at Charlotte, or last week at Las Vegas, places where I have raced a lot of different stuff. I guess it should make me feel old, but this is the youngest I’ve felt in a long time.”

For those who have spent time around Stewart over the past several decades, that youthfulness is shockingly apparent. His frame is nearly 50 pounds lighter than it was at the height of his NASCAR powers, at least partially responsible for his light-footed gait as he makes his way around the NHRA paddock. But the true power behind his newfound boyish spirit is anchored by the emotion that long eluded him, when he was emotionally unmoored to the point that his tantrums were once as anticipated and feared as were his moves on the racetrack.

The man is in love.

That’s how he ended up at the drag strip in the first place, his courtship of Leah Pruett, a 17-time NHRA race winner. They were engaged in March 2021 and married later that year. Stewart, having already owned teams and series spanning short tracks and NASCAR, decided to invest in drag racing. Pruett competed in Top Fuel for Tony Stewart Racing, while Stewart started dabbling in the lower division of Top Alcohol dragsters.

This season, Pruett, 35, made the decision to climb out of the cockpit while she and her husband started trying to become parents. She has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, a condition that prevents her thyroid from producing enough hormones. She has admitted that she struggled with controlling the condition enough to race without issues, so she made the decision to give her body a rest as the couple attempts pregnancy.

Stewart, who finished second in the Alcohol Funny Car standings in 2023, moved into her seat, despite no experience in a Top Fuel dragster — the iconic long, skinny, winged machine that routinely travels at speeds of more than 330 mph. He has not yet earned a Top Fuel victory but has advanced to the semifinals in the past two events, both of which employ the rear four-wide format instead of the traditional one-on-one races.

Pruett has struggled with being on the sidelines.

“We knew she was going to struggle,” Stewart admitted. “We’ve talked about it a bunch of times, but to make the decision she had to make first of all, and to execute and do what she’s doing is super hard. I’m glad I’m a male race car driver. The female race car drivers are way tougher than all of us men because to have to take yourself out of a car to have a baby, to sit there and do what you love doing and have your career best finishing points last year and then make a decision you want to start a family. … She has a million excuses to be off center every day and be frustrated and mad, and she’s been amazing through it.”

In the late 1990s, when Stewart made the move from young Midwestern Sprint Car legend to the major league level of the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR, he was seemingly off center every single day. Since retiring as a full-time NASCAR driver in 2016, with 49 wins and three Cup Series titles on his mantel, he has found peace of mind by diving into piles of meticulous details, whether it be as the owner of race teams, racetracks, or even entire racing series. When one of those ventures ceases to become enjoyable, he moves on (see: the persistent rumors that Stewart-Haas Racing is seeking to sell off at least one of its NASCAR team ownership charters).

Drag racing is nothing if not meticulous. For all of its unmeasurable noise and barely controllable violence, success at 330 mph is found in the study of all things minuscule, from racers’ reaction time to the go lights to the way that fuel is mixed and engines are torn down and reconstructed between each run.

“It’s procedures that you have to learn and it’s the cadence of the procedure and doing everything exactly the same every time,” he said, pinching his fingers together to make his point. “I told the other drivers, when you guys make split-second decisions for the less than four seconds that I run, I have to take your split-second decisions and make split-second decisions out of that. That’s how fast we have to make decisions here, because it’s not just steer left or steer right, or get out of it.

“It’s when something happens, your brain has to have the ability to quickly make a decision of, can I drive through this? Do I pedal this or do I just abort the run all together? And you have to do that in such a small amount of time.”

Is that fun?

“So fun. I love it. I’m so happy. I hope you can tell. I hope everyone can tell. Y’all could certainly tell when I wasn’t happy. I made that a little too obvious, didn’t I? Hopefully, it’s just as obvious now that I am happy.”

Then, with a Smoke smirk, he added an asterisk before heading over to sign those autographs for the “This Is Your Life” trio at the rope.

“You think racing the Indianapolis 500 at 230 miles per hour or racing against Dale Earnhardt at Daytona or trying to control an 11,000-horsepower Top Fuel car is scary? That’s nothing,” he said. “I’m way more scared of being a dad. But I’m ready for it, too.”

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Encino out of Kentucky Derby, Epic Ride added

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2 hours ago

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April 30, 2024

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Encino out of Kentucky Derby, Epic Ride added

  • Associated Press

Apr 30, 2024, 01:56 PM ET

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Encino won’t run in the Kentucky Derby this weekend, trainer Brad Cox said Tuesday.

The colt was a 20-1 shot on the morning-line for the 150th edition on Saturday. Cox didn’t immediately give a reason for the decision. That leaves the trainer with early 8-1 third-choice Catching Freedom and Just a Touch for the 1 1/4-mile race.

Epic Ride now joins the 20-horse field. The colt trained by John Ennis is listed as 50-1 on the morning line. Adam Beschizza will make his Derby debut in the saddle.

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Twins to activate closer Duran vs. White Sox

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3 hours ago

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April 30, 2024

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Twins to activate closer Duran vs. White Sox

  • Field Level Media

Apr 30, 2024, 11:39 AM ET

Fireballer Jhoan Duran is ready to join the Twins’ roster for the first time this season as Minnesota takes on the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday.

Manager Rocco Baldelli said Duran likely was to be available for the surging Twins, who have won eight in a row with a makeshift bullpen compensating for not having the 100 mph heat from their planned closer yet in 2024. Duran went for testing on his aching side on March 16 and was shut down with an oblique strain.

For Duran, the radar gun told him it was time to return.

Duran wrapped up a two-game rehab assignment with Triple-A St. Paul on Saturday. During the second outing, his fastball clocked at an average of 101.8 mph.

“When I see that velocity, I feel more good,” Duran said. “It’s like, ‘OK, you see it, let’s go.'”

Duran joined the Twins in Chicago on Monday.

The 26-year-old right-hander has career 35 saves and a 2.15 ERA with 173 strikeouts in 130 innings.

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