The bowl games are upon us! Every year these tend to provide some fun matchups, a chance for fans to watch some interesting teams from the smaller conferences, and a useful distraction during the holiday season. The first round of games is filled with Group of 5 contests, including lots of really strong teams whose coaches have already left for higher paying jobs or are still in consideration for openings amongst Power 5 programs.
There are also some programs running next-generation schemes as tactical innovation in football tends to flow upwards with the bigger schools catching on to best practices after they are established and not beforehand.