Las Vegas Bowl looks like one of the biggest in the game's history (2024)

By Case Keefer (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Modern-day college football bowl teams typically fall into one of two categories: an experienced roster hoping for a last hurrah or an ultrayoung group looking to get a jump on the future. This year’s 30th edition of the Las Vegas Bowl has one team fitting each description heading into the Dec. 17 game at Allegiant Stadium.

No. 14 Oregon State (9-3) is the senior-laden team taking a victory lap, while unranked Florida (6-6) is the greener side full of underclassmen looking to solidify their place in the program.

The pairing makes for one of the most high-profile, if not intriguing, matchups in the history of the local bowl game. It’s only the second year since the Las Vegas Bowl got elevated in the pecking order, to annually feature two Power 5 conference opponents.

The Pac-12 Conference sends a representative every year, but the Big Ten Conference and Southeastern Conference alternate with an opponent.

Florida is therefore serving as the SEC’s debuting team, since the top football league in the country signed a deal with the Las Vegas Bowl. Oregon State will make its third all-time appearance after beating New Mexico 55-14 in the 2003 Las Vegas Bowl and falling 44-20 to BYU in 2009, both at Sam Boyd Stadium.

“That was the bowl I ultimately wanted to play in,” Oregon State senior linebacker Jack Colletto said in a news conference with reporters in Corvallis, Oregon, after the matchup was announced. “I wanted to play an SEC team. … Before the season, my dad was like, ‘I need to see you play in Vegas.’ Yeah, I know he meant the Pac-12 Championship for that, but this is a great venue and city to play in.”

Colletto has been part of a Beavers’ core, along with former Bishop Gorman High receiver Tyjon Lindsey, that has turned around the program during the past five years since former quarterback Jonathan Smith returned to coach at his alma mater. Oregon State had posted seven straight losing campaigns before breaking out with a 7-5 regular season a year ago.

The Beavers were even better this year, riding an uncommon level of roster continuity to a fifth-place Pac-12 finish and, notably, a win over archrival Oregon, 38-34, to cap the regular season.

“We’re all about finishing everything and doing it the right way,” Colletto said. “When you go down there and you invest all this time and energy, obviously you want to win.”

Colletto recently won the Paul Hornung Award as college football’s most versatile player, following in the recent footsteps of NFL standouts like New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley (Penn State) and San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (Stanford). Initially recruited as a quarterback, Colletto maintained a role on offense and special teams despite captaining the Beavers’ defense.

Between Colletto and freshman running back Damien Martinez, who finished third in the Pac-12 with 970 rushing yards, Oregon State is heavier on star power despite Florida’s typically higher recruiting and visibility profile.

Anthony Richardson, who started every game as the Gators’ quarterback this season, is considered a fringe first-round NFL Draft pick, but he has opted out of the Las Vegas Bowl to start preparing for his professional career. The same goes for two other Florida standouts—guard O’Cyrus Torrence and linebacker Ventrell Miller.

Oregon State has also lost a pair of players with eyes on the draft, tight end Luke Musgrave and cornerback Rejzohn Wright, but wasn’t hit as hard with other exits. In addition to three players entering the draft, Florida has seen 17 players enter the transfer portal.

“There will be a few positions where there’s some challenges in terms of practice and scout teams and those type of things,” Florida coach Billy Napier told Gatorsports.com. “But each group has a solid group of players. We’ll be ready to go.”

Dealing with that large of an exodus would have been unfathomable a few years ago, but it’s now somewhat common in college football—especially for a first-year coach like Napier, still trying to make over the roster.

Florida got off to a fast start under Napier in Week 1 by upsetting eventual Pac-12 champion Utah 29-26, but later struggled to a 3-5 record in conference play.

“I know we didn’t win as many games, but there’s something to be said for the progress they made as people and the character of the group, and certainly the type of team they were,” Napier said in his postgame news conference after a 45-38 loss to Florida State in the regular-season finale. “I would hope that those are trademarks of Gator football going forward, and hopefully we can come out on the other end a little more in the future.”

Oregon State was competitive in every game this season except a blowout 42-16 loss to Utah a month after Florida knocked off the Utes. That result alone should be enough for the Beavers to heed Smith’s words and not take the Gators lightly, despite the latter’s diminished roster.

“It will add to the momentum, the exposure of the program,” Smith said of what a victory over Florida would mean. “Overall, we want to finish and send these seniors off the right way. It would mean a lot.”

This story originally appeared in Las VegasWeekly.