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Ranking the five best games of the 2016–17 bowl season

While the Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl produced dramatic showdowns between playoff-caliber teams, there was no matching this year's national championship game.

Over 41 games and 24 days, the college football postseason offered some fitting sendoffs to another thrilling year. Although the College Football Playoff semifinals were mostly duds for the second straight year (consider it the New Year’s Eve curse), bowl season provided plenty of drama from the highest of stakes on down.

Narrowing it all down to just the five best games was no easy task—made harder by Monday’s sensational finale—but the resulting lists comprises the games that truly stuck with us now that all the action is over. We’ll rely on these memories to get us through the long off-season.