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Bowl season is here and so are confidence pools. If you are unfamiliar with confidence pools, the concept is quite simple and fun. You pick the winners of each bowl game and assign a confidence rating to each.
Being that there are 44 bowl games, you assign a point value from 1-44. The lower the point value, the less confidence you have in the outcome. If you get the prediction correct, you get the point value you assigned to the game.
These pools are incredibly fun, yet challenging. The best thing to do with these pools is to immerse yourself in the knowledge of these teams. To parse out the knowledge, there are three strategies to utilize when picking these games.
Pick Early Games
The earlier the games are where you will find your biggest matchup disparities. Towards the end of bowl season, the matchups feature two great teams, especially in the playoff games. Early on, you can see an average Power Five team go up against a 10-win Group of Five team. Those games are where you can see significant mismatches, where the disparities between these teams can be far and wide. There are two games that jump out where this scenario could come into play.
Birmingham Bowl: Houston (+3) vs Auburn
This game is set up perfectly for a huge Houston win. They have played fantastic defense all season and have shown some explosiveness on offense. Clayton Tune has been successful this season in throwing the football, especially to Nathaniel Dell. When those two have been on target, the offense clicks.
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The Tigers are dealing with some issues on their own. Starting quarterback Bo Nix has entered the transfer portal and running back Tank Bigsby just returned to the team after entering the portal himself. TJ Finley has done an admirable job in his place, but he has struggled, especially with pressure. The Cougars are fourth in the nation in pressure rate, getting pressure on 37.7% of pass-rush snaps. Pair that with a second-ranked havoc rate and that could spell issues for the Tigers early and often. Take Houston with some confidence in this game and feel good about it.
Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Minnesota (-3.5) vs West Virginia
The Golden Gophers have had quite the odd season. In their first four games, they hung in there with Ohio State for 50 minutes, narrowly beat Miami (OH), shut out Colorado on the road, and got upset by Bowling Green as 30+ point favorites. They leveled off to win eight games, including a dominating performance against Wisconsin to finish the season. Through the air, Tanner Morgan is average at best, but the rushing game has been good all season despite losing their top three running backs to injury.
West Virginia’s best plan to beat Minnesota is to stop the run and score points early and often. Both of those things will be difficult to accomplish. The Mountaineers are an average team in stopping the run and have SP+'s 61st ranked defense. The offense is even more inconsistent led by Jarret Doege, who has 19 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Going against the Gophers’ 11th-ranked defense per SP+, the Mountaineers will find themselves struggling to move the football. Minnesota should be able to handle this game with ease.
Pick Against Teams With Departures
Every year, we see players and coaches leave teams for greener pastures. Most notably last season, the Florida Gators had their top three receivers forgo the Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma and got boat raced 55-20. It’s far from the only example of this happening, as players have been skipping the bowl game regularly since Christian McCaffrey did after the 2016 season. Pair that with this season’s insane coaching carousel and things can get dicey.
This season more so than others have given us numerous games impacted by those departures. Because of those, there are some matchups where the betting line tells the story.
Quick Lane Bowl: Western Michigan (-6) vs Nevada
The Wolfpack has been decimated over the last few weeks. They lost their head coach Jay Norvell to Colorado State last week and quarterback Carson Strong just declared for the draft and opted out of the bowl game. During the last three weeks, the Wolfpack have lost their top five receiving options to the draft and transfer portal. This line opened at Nevada -6.5 and has now almost flipped entirely.
Western Michigan has some talented players. Quarterback Kaleb Eleby and wide receiver Skyy Moore have developed a deadly combination through the air, including a four-touchdown performance against Northern Illinois right before Thanksgiving. Ali Fayed has also been a menace on the edge for the Broncos, who are playing in a pseudo home game in Detroit. With all the change and missing pieces for the Wolfpack, Western Michigan should be able to take care of business here.
Hawaii Bowl: Memphis (-7.5) vs Hawaii
This game is an interesting one: a home game for Hawaii, but one where the line has already moved 4 points in Memphis’ direction. The Memphis Tigers have been up and down. With true freshman quarterback Seth Hennigan leading the team, they ended the season with only six wins, but four of them were by a total of 13 points. Three of those losses had the Tigers with a win expectency over 50 percent. They finished the season off strong with a win over Tulane, gaining bowl eligibility.
Where this comes into play is with Hawaii. Players have started speaking out about head coach Todd Graham destroying their love of football. Starting quarterback Chevan Cordeiro and leading rusher Dae Dae Hunter both entered the transfer portal after their win over Wyoming in the last week of the regular season. Missing both of those players paired with the coaching turmoil should lead to disaster for the Warriors.
Stay Away From High-Profile Matchups
The best games are usually the ones to stay away from. Why is that? The odds aren’t great. The later and more high-profile the game, the more difficult they are to predict. The perfect examples are the New Years Six bowl games. There are too many variables to parse out and try to justify when making these decisions. This year’s slate gives us a couple of those games that are too difficult to feel tremendously confident.
Rose Bowl: Ohio State (-6.5) vs Utah
After a crushing loss to their rival from up north eliminating them from the playoff conversation, there is a question as to whether the Buckeyes will be up for this game. They do possess the top offense per SP+, Heisman Trophy finalist CJ Stroud and the best trio of wide receivers we have seen since 2019 Alabama. The only other loss that the Buckeyes have is to Oregon, a team that their opponent beat twice this season.
Utah not only beat Oregon twice in a four-week span, but they crushed them by a combined score of 76-17, once at home and the other in Las Vegas. After starting out the season 1-2, the Utes rattled off wins in nine of their last 10 games. The biggest factor in their success was elevating Cameron Rising to starting quarterback. They were dominant over the last six games the Utes had four games with 100 percent post-game win expectancy and their other two were 99 and 98 percent. This is one that could go heavy in either direction, so proceed with caution.
Fiesta Bowl: Notre Dame (-2) vs Oklahoma State
After losing head coach Brian Kelly to LSU somewhat abruptly, the Irish weathered the storm by promoting player favorite and defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman to the position. Things are looking up for the Irish, but they will be missing their two best players. Both Kyle Hamilton and Kyren Williams have opted out of the bowl game, putting the Irish in the position to look towards the future at those positions and also wide receiver which has been decimated by injuries. The are a top 20 team in both offense and defense per SP+ and are the seventh-ranked team overall.
Oklahoma State on the other hand isn’t missing any players due to opt-outs, but did lose their defensive coordinator Jim Knowles to Ohio State. He received a 1.1 million dollar raise to go become the defensive coordinator in Colombus. Why is that a big deal? His defense was third nationally in scoring along with being first in sacks on the season. Quarterback Spencer Sanders has been incredibly inconsistent, throwing seven interceptions in the last two games and running back Jaylen Warren was unable to finish the Big-12 Championship Game against Baylor with an injury. This game is likely to be close and down and dirty, ground and pound football. Be wary whichever side you take, and don’t put too much stock into this particular choice.
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