Rick Catlett has ruined this game.  Gator Bowl used to be one of the better bowls.  Would routinely host two teams in the top 25 with a good chance of getting a top 10 team.  But it's been 16 years since they've had a top 10 team, over 10 years now since this game has had two top 25 teams, and this will be the 3rd year in row without either team being ranked!  This bowl game has completely tanked.  

 

A few years after taking control, Catlett aligned the conference with the Big East and the ACC.  And if you remember back in the mid90s neither conference was all that good.  Gator Bowl was essentially praying for a FSU/Clemson vs Miami/Va Tech matchup.  Instead we got a lot of UNC, GaTech, Syracuse, West Virginia, etc...  He went crawling back to the SEC desperate for better matchups but the bowl alignment had passed him by and he was reduced to getting the 4th or 5th best SEC team.. and sometimes worse. 

 

And now the SEC has shifted their alignment again and the Gator Bowl is on par with the Belk Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Houston Bowl, etc... when it comes to choosing teams.  May get anywhere from the 4th best to 9th best SEC team.  Look at the game this year.... we are stuck with an 8-4 GaTech team vs a 7-5 Kentucky team.  What a terrible matchup for a bowl that used to routinely have two top 25 teams and was essentially one level down from the big 4 Rose Sugar Orange Fiesta.  The Gator has been surpassed by the Peach Bowl.  It's been surpassed by the Cotton Bowl.  Even the Outback Bowl has been getting much better matchups lately.  In the last 6 years, 11 of the 12 teams in the Outback Bowl have been ranked.

 

Gator Bowl has turned into a joke and I'm blaming leadership 100%.  

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