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Texas' problem next year will be they won't face many offenses that line up like Georgia and attack them traditionally.   They will play a lot of spread teams that run up tempo which will limit the impact of their DL (which appeared to me to be Texas' strength last night)

what it told me is the best on power 5 teams can play one game with probably all but 2 power 5 teams.... (and most power 5 teams can't play with those 2 either).    They just lack the depth to play 4 or 5 in a row.   They do have quality starters.  My opinion on that hasn't changed.   

Texas' problem next year will be they won't face many offenses that line up like Georgia and attack them traditionally.   They will play a lot of spread teams that run up tempo which will limit the impact of their DL (which appeared to me to be Texas' strength last night)

Yup it's funny, Texas would probably fare better in the SEC than in the B12.  Regardless, you have to find ways to win games and the Horns are getting better at that.

Of course. I don't buy the "didn't show up" stuff. Never have and never will. These kids want to win. If they didn't, they wouldn't play football or any other participate in any competitive activity. The idea that you can't get up for a bowl game against a respectable opponent it ludicrous.

You don't have to believe it for it to be true.
I'll start by saying everything matters.  Every little thing plays into influencing how these KIDS play.
Their grades situation, their girlfriend situation, their home situation, what they did last night with their friends, their relationship with the HC, position coach, between teammates, etc....and I think you'd agree with all of that.
You've also cited in the past that you can't fathom not being able to "get up" for 12 measly games.  Yes, to us, the fans, it's 12 games (or 13 or 14 or whatever - a small number), but to these players, it's a grind.  Practices, film study, staying eligible - it wears on them.  Yes, a great HC will keep things fresh and mix it up and not let the season seem like a marathon.  From August to January, it's football everyday.  But set that aside.
So you're in this grind and things are going great and you're on the cusp of something special.  Something your entire home town will celebrate, something that will make your family proud of you forever, something the school will promote long after you're gone...but then you lose.  All of that is gone.  The uniqueness of your season - your potential eternal notoriety is gone.  Just like that.  And now you have this additional game.  A game that will win you back none of what had previously been on the table.  A game that you have to travel to...maybe you don't want that additional, NOW (comparatively) meaningless game to be an away game.  Maybe the hoopla the week leading up to the game was fun and you got some swag, but none of it injects any of the importance into the bowl game that your last game had.
When a player is playing in a football game, he's trying.  He wants to do his job and whip the guy in front of him and be better than him.  But that internal motivating fire is not there, in the instances of Michigan and Georgia.  Call it a human flaw, but stop saying it's not a thing.  It so obviously is.  So whether the players are more chill on the sideline, having conversations and enjoying a cup of Gatorade rather than being fire-and-brimstone with their position groups or whatever else that lack of fire does to their performance, it's a thing.
Who you play matters, just as we agreed up top, that everything matters.  But more than that, who you play matters in comparison to who you are.  A bowl date with 9-3 Penn State in Tampa is big-time if I'm somebody like an 8-4 Iowa State or 9-3 Syracuse...but if I'm 10-2 Alabama or 11-1 Texas, it's a letdown.  A bowl matchup needs to be on your level or above your level to feel sexy and get the juices flowing (in that one aspect of many).  No, Penn State probably wasn't stoked to face Kentucky - not sexy.  Yes, UCF was probably up to play LSU and LSU probably bummed that they were paired up with UCF.  It's not fair, but it's true.  
Michigan AND Florida fans would've liked some variety this bowl season, but neither got it.  So what transpired from the pairing?  Both sides groaning about playing each other again.  One side had the motivation of revenge.  The other side had players sitting out.  One side, with the newer coach, loved the opportunity to "get back" where the program wanted to be.  The other side had playoff aspirations and were now playing a 9-3 team that they beat last year.  From primetime with all eyes watching to a noon kickoff.  
And I've never said any of this guarantees a loss from the unmotivated team, just that they tend to lose and have this built-in REASON (not excuse) for doing so.  This dissension you keep sharing is starting to look religious - blind faith in the face of mounting evidence against it.  

I think the more salient point is that bowl opponents are worthy opponents, probably better than all but 2 or 3 opponents faced all year.

Even better teams can lose to somewhat less good opponents in a single game, obviously.

On G5 vs P5:
We're often given a very good G5 team from year to year, whether it was Boise or TCU or Utah or BYU or Hawai'i or UCF or whoever it will be 2 years from now, there's a group of 5 conferences, and the best team(s) from them is usually very good.




That beings said, we don't know how good they truly are and never will.  We never will, because we can't go back in time and have an individual team play a difficult slate of games.  2008 Utah might have been the best team in the country.  But we'll never know - and not because of any disservice to them.  We'll never know, because they waited until their last game to peak and they waited until their last game to peak because their schedule was so weak.  Yes, most of that is due to their conference slate, but also OOC:
2 point win vs an eventual 3-9 Michigan
3 point win vs an eventual 9-4 Oregon State
Funny, the UM win probably gave Utah more street cred than the OSU win, but look at the records.  Close wins over a very bad team and a barely ranked/unranked team.  That doesn't suggest they'd be able to swing with the big boys.  That's fair, isn't it?  Looking at past results to make a prediction...the past results didn't say they couldn't beat a top 5 team, just that it was probably unlikely.  But, as luck would have it, Utah got a chance to play a top 5 team.  And they won!  




But we have the issue of my above post here.  Alabama had just lost all of their hopes a dreams the game before.  They had a #1 draft pick suspended.  They were playing an unsexy program.  Blah blah blah...




But toss that aside, they showed they could do it!  And that's great, it really is.  But they did it after playing the 80th-strongest schedule.  They had that magical zero in the loss column against the 80th-ranked schedule.  They literally didn't play back-to-back games in which both teams had a winning record.  Hell, if you go down their schedule, every other game was against a team with 8 or more losses.  It's astounding.




Now for the sake of argument, let's go ahead and say Utah was the best team of 2008.  How would we know?  We don't have enough data points to have any confidence in that.  Even with the comfortable win vs Alabama, their resume is severely lacking.  Is it the employer's fault that the prospective employee came to the interview with a severely deficient resume?  They might become your best worker, but you'd never hire them.  That's not on us, that's on the person/program.




If your conference affiliation prevents an undefeated season from earning you national championships, then you need to exit that conference or change the system.  Period.  TCU and Utah saw this and were proactive about it.  UCF is bitching and moaning.  Think about it - Alabama needed zero consecutive wins to make the playoff - that's how high up their program is.  They could've lost vs Georgia and still been included in the playoff - the Bama program and the SEC conference fuel that.  Right or wrong, it's true.  Now while that is the top of the mountain, other teams have found where they're at - OU found out they could make the playoff with 'only' 7 straight wins.  Ohio State found out they couldn't get in with only 5 straight wins.  Georgia, thanks to its program and conference affiliation, learned it could almost get in with zero wins, but not quite.  But it's probably a number in the single digits, to be sure.




So UCF learned this year that 25 consecutive wins wasn't enough to make the playoff.  No, last year shouldn't matter, but alas, as limited human minds involved in the decision-making process, it does.  Which is why Alabama's magic number is lower than anyone else's.  Clemson's is next lowest, and so on.  UCF needs to do what TCU/Utah did and get into a better conference OR change the system, like 2004 Auburn had a hand in, or the programs/conferences left out in 2011 did.




Saying we're pretend national champs or wanting brownie points for keeping it close is the wrong way to go about it.  

I think the more salient point is that bowl opponents are worthy opponents, probably better than all but 2 or 3 opponents faced all year.

Even better teams can lose to somewhat less good opponents in a single game, obviously.

Not to a 20 year old.  A 9-4 Texas team that only got into the game because of conference tie-ins isn't sexy.  Hell, there's a thread on the SEC board wondering aloud if it's a disgrace they were in it.  So c'mon.