Clemson-Kentucky game ranked No. 1 non-Playoff bowl

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CBS Sports ranked all 41 college football bowl games for the 2023 season, and the Tigers' tango with Kentucky led all non-Playoff action.

Only the down-to-the-wire Alabama-Michigan Rose Bowl was ahead of the Jacksonville classic, where a late Phil Mafah score capped a 28-point fourth quarter for Clemson in a 38-35 win:

"I don't know where to begin, so I'll just begin with the record. There were 42 points scored in the fourth quarter of this game, more than in any fourth quarter in bowl game history -- and that was just part of what went down in the Gator Bowl. There were eight lead changes, including four in the fourth quarter, as both teams kept trading haymakers," CBS Sports' Tom Fornelli said. "It was everything you could want from a bowl game played on a Friday morning in Jacksonville...All bowl games in the future should study tape of the 2023 Gator Bowl for an idea of what they should want to be. There wasn't even an edible mascot, or a novelty Gatorade dump in this game, but it didn't need it. Everything that happened on the field was more than enough."

CBS Sports had the ACC-SEC matchup at No. 21 going into the bowl season.

The next-best ACC bowl was Miami's 31-24 loss to Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl (NYC) at No. 13. Not surprisingly, the opt-out-ridden FSU 63-3 loss to Clemson's 2024 opener opponent, Georgia, was last.

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