Saturday, December 20, 2008

Bowl Game Predictions with Katie

As the bowl season gets started, college football's last hurrah will echo for almost 3 weeks. Here are my picks, a little delayed by a hangover, with my wonderful fiance's predictions along side. Over the last three football seasons her knowledge and love of the game has grown by leaps and bounds. Her predictions will be in italics.

Eagle Bank Bowl - Navy over Wake Forest... a team that struggles in the ACC will have trouble with the triple option, plus Navy seniors are playing their last game before they go to serve our country.
New Mexico Bowl - Fresno St. over Colorado St.... Katie's going for the Rams for her maid of honor Erin, I like the Bulldogs toughness.
magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl - South Florida over Memphis... essentially a home game for a disappointing Bulls team.
Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl - BYU over Arizona... BYU offense is pretty damn good. It says something about TCU and Utah that BYU finished in third in the Mountain West.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl - Troy over Southern Miss... a little karma factor going against SoMiss plus you never go against the champions of the Sun Belt.
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsetta Bowl - TCU over Boise St.... Katie likes the Broncos because their like the Gonzaga of college football, I love TCU's defense.
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl - Hawaii over Notre Dame... how exactly does Notre Dame deserve a bowl game, let alone a holiday in Hawaii?
Motor City Bowl - Central Michigan over Florida Atlantic... another basic home game, plus the Chippewas have much more talent than the Owls.
Meinke Car Care Bowl - North Carolina over West Virginia... another home game, and I wasn't impressed by West Virginia's offense as much.
Champs Sports Bowl - Florida St. over Wisconsin... tough to tell if a disappointing Big Ten team was worse than a middle-of-the-road ACC team.
Emerald Bowl - California over Miami... a quick drive across the bay to attempt to prove that the Pac10 is pretty good.
Independence Bowl - Louisiana Tech over Northern Illinois... what's going on with all these de facto home games? Is it a conspiracy?
PapaJohns.com Bowl - Rutgers over NC St.... what's up with this bowl? Could Papa John's itself not afford to sponsor the bowl? Rutgers has risen from the dead by the way.
Valero Alamo Bowl - Missouri over Northwestern... battle of the journalists! I'm tired of people saying the Northwestern passing offense is going to have a field against the Tiger's pass defense. Anyone think the defense has given up high numbers because they played in the pass happy Big12?? Tigers big!
Roady's Humanitarian Bowl - Nevada over Maryland... Nevada almost upset Boise St. on the same field and the ACC team has never done well in this game.
Texas Bowl - Rice over Western Michigan... another de facto home game, and I like the Rice offense a bit more than Western Michigan's.
Pacific Life Holiday Bowl - Oklahoma St. over Oregon... watch your eyes if you tune in for this game, the mixture of Oregon's uniforms and OSU's orange is scary, plus I'm not picking against the Big12, except once.
Bell Helicopters Armed Forced Bowl - Houston over Air Force... Houston puts up a lot of points and Air Force doesn't through the ball, win for the Cougars.
Brut Sun Bowl - Oregon St. over Pittsburgh... they did beat USC, and Pitt played in the Big East.
Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl - Boston College over Vanderbilt... even though its a de facto home game and Vandy's first bowl appearance in a while, BC is pretty darn good defensively.
Insight Bowl - Kansas over Minnesota... not picking against the Big12 yet, Katie refuses to pick the Jayhawks.
Chick-fil-A Bowl - Georgia Tech over LSU... a defense that gave up 50+ twice facing the power triple option Tech offense, go with the Jackets.
Outback Bowl - Iowa over South Carolina... chance for an SEC defense to prove it can stop the best running back from the Big10, Katie and I lean towards the Hawkeyes.
Captial One Bowl - Georgia over Michigan St.... taking the dynamic offense from the SEC versus the one-dimensional one from the Big10.
Konica Minolta Gator Bowl - Nebraska over Clemson... Katie's going for the Tigers because of another bridesmaid, I like the Big12.
Rose Bowl present by Citi - USC over Penn St.... all USC needs to do is score 20 points, not sure they can do that.
FedEx Orange Bowl - Cincinnati over Virginia Tech... I just get the feeling that these Bearcats are pretty tough to beat.
AT&T Cotton Bowl - Texas Tech over Mississippi... sure they beat Florida, but Tech beat Texas, and Tech is getting the same treatment Mizzou got last year, top 10 in BCS but not going.
AutoZone Liberty Bowl - Kentucky over East Carolina... the early season sleepers fell off, but Katie still likes them, they did beat Tulsa.
Allstate Sugar Bowl - Alabama over Utah... I really want to pick Utah (since I have them ranked #1) but the Tide is probably pretty mad.
International Bowl - Buffalo over Connecticut... I like UConn's running game, but the Bulls played Mizzou hard and upset Ball St.
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl - Texas over Ohio St.... talk about a pissed off team, the Buckeyes have no idea what about to hit them (especially since they don't belong over Boise St.).
GMAC Bowl - Tulsa over Ball St.... no that they've lost, I can pick against them all day long.
FedEx National Championship - Florida over Oklahoma... eventually Oklahoma's offense (minus DeMarco Murray) is going to run into a defense that can play football... I introduce Florida's defense, plus their power running offense.

Stay tuned for much more blogging, including the basketball predictions and college coaching moves.

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