NEW ORLEANS — College football bowl season is what you make of it, but it also comes with a cautionary note of sorts.

That’s because bowl season is also what coaches, teams, players and fanbases make of it.

The College Football Playoffs have been a strong indicator of team and conference strength — everyone in this week’s Sugar, Rose, Fiesta and Peach CFP quarterfinal bowl games are still playing for all the marbles.

Those teams and players are engaged, eyes all on the big prize.

But when it comes to non-playoff bowl matchups anything can and does go.

Kirby Smart has seen to it that his Georgia football teams stick together like few others when it comes to the postseason, even when the Bulldogs have missed the playoffs.

UGA has won seven consecutive bowl games since dropping a Sugar Bowl to Texas, 28-21, following the 2018 season.

The five-year streak started in the same Caesars Superdome where Georgia will face Notre Dame at 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday in the Sugar Bowl CFP quarterfinal, and it stands as the longest active win streak of its kind:

• Beat Florida State, 63-3, Orange Bowl (non-playoff)

• Beat TCU, 65-7, CFP title game

• Beat Ohio State, 42-41, Peach Bowl CFP semifinal

• Beat Alabama, 33-18, CFP title game

• Beat Michigan, 34-11, Orange Bowl CFP semifinal

• Beat Cincinnati, 24-21, Peach Bowl (non-playoff)

• Beat Baylor, 26-14, Sugar Bowl (non-playoff)

Other programs have not been as dialed in or consistent with their commitment to full participation or their commitment to one another. That reality chips away at any discussion on judging conference superiority based on bowl results.

That’s not to say Alabama’s bowl game with Michigan on Tuesday won’t hold entertainment value, or that the Iowa-Missouri Music City Bowl on Monday won’t be worth watching.

But it is to suggest that non-playoff bowl games don’t always uphold the same level of competitive integrity as regular-season or playoff matchups.

“The bowl season is kind of like it’s own season,” former coaching veteran Jim Bollman once said of non-playoff matchups. “You have players and coaches making decisions on their futures, so there’s always a lot going on behind the scenes.”

Indeed, and the public rarely knows all those things, or even where their respective team’s cumulative mindset is at until after kickoff.

Miami Heisman Trophy finalist Cam Ward was the most recent example of there being more to the story than anyone knew in the bowl lead-up.

Ward sat out the second half of the Hurricanes’ 42-41 loss to Iowa State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando on Saturday.

Ward set the Division I records for TD passes in the first half before opting out the second half — likely to ensure his health as he’s projected as a Top 10 pick.

Fan reaction was predictably not positive.

But elite players sitting out bowl games is nothing new and has been trending up since Christian McCaffrey famously - -and very openly — sat out Stanford’s Sun Bowl in 2016 despite being healthy enough to play.

Of course, scores of others had opted-out of bowl games over the previous decades, but very few were bold enough to admit they were healthy enough to play.

Smart has built a culture where the vast majority of Bulldogs’ players have taken part in bowl games even when UGA wasn’t in the playoffs.

Last year’s Orange Bowl served as a prime example of the difference teams can have in philosophy, as all of the healthy Georgia players took part in a 63-3 win over a Florida State team that had nine players opt out.

Seminole coach Mike Norvell said at the time his 2023 team was “a group that will be remembered” for its perfect regular season and ACC championship.

As it turns out, that team will be remembered by some for the wrong reasons. It’s loss was the most lopsided in bowl history, and the Florida State culture was arguably fractured to the extent this year’s team fell to 2-10.

Georgia has had its years with opt-outs, too, but Smart has learned valuable lessons and applied them.

Smart allowed opt-out Deandre Baker and pending transfer Justin Fields to attend (and in Fields case, suit up) for the 2019 Sugar Bowl, and it proved more of a distraction than benefit as UGA lost to Texas, 28-21.

The following season, with Georgia set to face No. 7 Baylor in the Sugar Bowl, Smart declared that opt-outs would not be welcome on the sidelines.

That included two players who had been voted permanent captains — Andrew Thomas and J.R. Reed, along with eventual first-round pick Isaiah Wilson.

“It’s a new season,” Smart declared before the 2020 Sugar Bowl following the 2019 season, “and it’s a one-game season.”

Georgia, even with a handful of other players suspended, beat Baylor easily, 26-14.

To be fair, coaches aren’t always engaged in bowl games, either.

North Carolina was led by interim head coach Freddie Kitchens in its 27-14 Fenway Bowl loss to UConn on Saturday, with former head coach Mack Brown fired a month before.

New Tar Heels head coach Bill Belichick, who is guaranteed to make $10 million over the next three seasons, didn’t attempt to coach the team or even bother to attend the game.

Per UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham, Belichick and his new general manager, former NFL executive Michael Lombardi had “locked themselves in a room and really spent all the time since he’s been announced (as head coach) building the roster for this spring and next year.”

It’s hard to imagine Belichick couldn’t have made the time to fly to the bowl site and engage boosters and players, especially when one considers how modern-day technology keeps global communication and knowledge at one’s fingertips 24-7.

It’s understandable how Tar Heels fans who traveled to support the program at the game would be disappointed, and it didn’t send a strong message to the players taking part in the game, itself.

This current, checkered bowl culture makes Smart’s run of bowl success even more impressive — even in years with a few notable opt-outs — since that bowl defeat to Texas seven years ago.

Smart said after blowing out Florida State last season that it’s up to college football — and the individual programs — to decide the best course for the future when it comes to bowl games.

“I know things are changing, (and) things are going to change next year,” Smart said after the 63-3 win over FSU. “You know what, there’s gonna still be bowl games outside of those (playoff games).

“People got to decide what they want and what they really want to get out of it.”

Indeed, because at the moment, it’s fair to say needs to get more out of its non-playoff bowl season — from a competitive and participation standpoint — at the risk of its extinction.