The college football bowl season begins today with five bowl games. A total of 39 (27 in December and 12 in January) bowl games will culminate on January 12 when the College Football Championship will be decided. Either Oregon, Florida State, Alabama or Ohio State will raise the trophy at AT & T Stadium in Arlington, Texas as college football’s best team.

A total of 84 schools have played in 10 or more bowl games in their history. Alabama (61) and Texas (52) top the list. Of schools that have played in 10-plus bowl games, Marshall has the best winning percentage in bowl games at .800 (an 8-2 record). Marshall will look to add another win as they face off against Northern Illinois on December 23 in the Boca Raton Bowl. Should Marshall fall to Northern Illinois, Utah, with the second-best bowl record looks to take over the top spot. With a 13-4 (.765 winning percentage) in bowl games, Utah is the only other school with a bowl record above .700 (minimum of 10 bowl game appearances).

Here’s a look at the schools that have the best (and worst) bowl game records in history (minimum of 10 bowl games played to qualify).

Best bowl game records (over .600) 1. Marshall, .800 2. Utah, .765 3. USC, .660 4. Mississippi, .657 5. Boise State, .643 6. Penn State, .636 7. Florida State, .634 8. Oklahoma State, .625 9. Auburn, .622 10. Syracuse, .600 11. Toledo, .615 12. Oklahoma, .606 13. Oregon State .600 14. Wake Forest, .600

Worst bowl game records (under .400) 1. Northwestern, .182 2. Iowa State, .250 3. Duke, .300 4. Nevada, .308 5. Minnesota, .313 6. New Mexico, .350 7. Tulane, .364 8. South Carolina, .368 9. Virginia Tech, .370 10. Arkansas, .372 11. UTEP, .385 12. Virginia, .389 13. Michigan State, .391

Three of the 14 schools in the “Best record” list are not playing in bowl games this year: Syracuse, Oregon State and Wake Forest. Five of the schools in the “Worst record” list are absent from the bowl schedule this year: New Mexico, Northwestern, Tulane, Iowa State and Virginia.

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