Sadly, Cure Bowl meant more than Gators getting blown out in Cotton Bowl | Commentary

Eh, who cares?

I mean, really, who actually cares in any substantive way that the depleted, disrupted, distracted seventh-ranked Florida Gators got blown out 55-20 by the sixth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners in the Cotton Bowl Wednesday night?

If you ask me, Gator Nation didn’t much care. Dan Mullen and his assistant coaches — undeniably relieved that this pandemic-plagued season is finally over — probably didn’t much care, either. And UF’s players, at least the many of them who opted out and chose not to play in the game, obviously didn’t care at all.

It used to be a New Year’s Six bowl game of this magnitude between two marquee teams actually meant something to the programs involved, but when you combine this COVID-cursed season with the growing trend of star players opting out of bowls, these games have become as pointless as screen doors on a submarine.

Give Oklahoma credit for rising to the occasion and rolling over the Gators for nearly 700 yards of offense (435 on the ground), but should we really surprised? This wasn’t the Florida Gators. This was the Gutted Gators.

Mullen pretty much told us that his team’s tumultuous season ended after the closer-than-expected loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. After that game, during a Zoom videoconference with reporters, Mullen acknowledged that the mood in the locker room was especially somber because, “It’s probably the last time this team ever plays together — and that’s a tough deal.”

Mullen no doubt had an inclination then that his team would be a shell of itself during the Cotton Bowl because of the imminent exodus of players after the conference title game. The Gators were missing nine starters Wednesday night — four on offense and five on defense — mainly because of a flurry of opt-outs. Mullen said the Gators were actually below the minimum number of available scholarship players Wednesday night and could have chosen to cancel the game.

“A lot of the guys who were out there playing tonight were on the scout team most of the year,” Mullen said. “... I would have loved to have played the season we were supposed to play with the team we were supposed to have. ... That wasn’t the 2020 football team you saw [tonight.3/8 We had 25 guys missing off the 2020 football team. The last game the 2020 team played was 11 days ago (in the SEC Championship Game).

In fact, UF’s entire receiving corps —otherworldly tight end Kyle Pitts, electric wide receiver Kadarius Toney and dynamic wideout Trevon Grimes all chose not to play in the bowl game to prepare for the NFL draft (although you wonder how much draft preparation is actually going on the week after Christmas). Throw in redshirt sophomore receiver Jacob Copeland, who did not play in the game because he tested positive for COVID-19, and the Gators were without their top four receivers.

Earlier this week, a well-known high school coach texted me about all of the UF stars who decided not to play in the Cotton Bowl. “Opting out,” the old-school coach wrote, “is 2020 slang for, ‘I QUIT.’”

I don’t believe that to be true because many of these players are simply looking out for their financial futures. However, how do you not admire UF quarterback Kyle Trask for still choosing to play in the Cotton Bowl, even though he is a Heisman Trophy finalist and a potential first-round NFL draft pick? Who would have blamed Trask if he, too, had opted out; especially after seeing his high school teammate — Miami quarterback D’Eriq King — suffer a scary knee injury during the Cheez-It Bowl Tuesday night in Orlando?

Sadly, Trask did nothing but harm his draft stock by choosing to play on Wednesday night with a skeleton-crew roster and a bunch of bench-warming wide receivers. Shockingly, he threw three interceptions on UF’s first three possessions after having thrown only five interceptions in the previous 11 games this season. He threw a pick-six on only his second throw of the game, trying to complete a sideline pass to a redshirt senior wide receiver (Rick Wells) who had but nine career catches.

Oklahoma quickly built such a huge lead that Mullen eventually surrendered, pulled Trask from the game and went with Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson — the two young quarterbacks who will battle for the starting job next season. In short, the Cotton Bowl was little more than a glorified scrimmage for Mullen to evaluate players for next season.

If nothing else, all the opt-outs took all the pressure off Mullen and the Gators to win this game. Any other year and UF’s demanding fan base would be grumbling if the program ended the season with three straight losses, a bowl blowout and an 8-4 record, but now … who cares?

Let’s face it, this UF season, for all intents and purposes, ended after the bizarre, inexplicable loss to LSU. That’s when Florida’s chances of making the College Football Playoff semifinals essentially ended and Gator Nation seemed to lose interest in the rest of the season.

It’s easy and convenient to blame COVID-19 for what has happened to the bowl system this season, but this trend of postseason apathy has been growing for years. Once upon a time, before the BCS and the College Football Playoff and the corporate sponsors and the billion-dollar TV contracts and the name-and-likeness lawsuits, bowl games actually meant something.

Back then, a bowl game — any bowl game — was a reward for a decent season; not a penalty for a disappointing finish. And that’s exactly what many of the bigger bowls have become in this all-or-nothing playoff world.

I remember the days when Gator fans would celebrate a trip to now-defunct second-tier holiday classics like the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston. Now neither fans nor players can get excited about playing in the storied Cotton Bowl against one of the most iconic programs in college football history.

I never thought I’d say this, but I was much more intrigued by the Cure Bowl game between Liberty and Coastal Carolina than I was in the Cotton Bowl matchup between the Gators and the Sooners.

“I don’t know if this year is just a unique anomaly, but I think college football really needs to do a lot of evaluating,” Mullen said after the loss. “I’m a traditionalist. I love college football history. I love the game. I love the passion. I love the bowl games. I love the history and tradition of college football. But things are changing. If we can’t hold on to the past, then how do we forge into the future, reevaluate and rethink the games?”

That’s a question the powers that be better answer quickly.

If not, college football fans will be opting out of the bowl games more rapidly than the players themselves.

This column first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on FM 96.9 and AM 740.