Bowl Season 2025-2026 Writeups and Hopefully Feedback

Not gonna play the Sun Bowl, er I mean the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl. I REALLY wanted to bet Arizona State in this one but there are just so many players out for ASU that I can't so it. The ASU defense was good all year, but they are completely deserted in the secondary and will be relying on all Freshmen or redshirt freshmen who haven't played. Also, they will be really dependent on their run game on offense, and although Jeff Sims has the ability to go off, they wil be relying on freshmen there too because Raleek Brown isn't playing and now it appears Kanye Udoh is banged up as well. Duke has some opt outs as well, and a couple of their top guys on defense aren't playing(Vinnie Anthony most notably), but I'm afraid the Mensah/Barkate tandum might really pick on the youngsters back there so I'm gonna take a pass on that one. Line has held steady though right around 3. If I bet it it'll be Arizona State +. Probably won't.
 
19. Citrus Bowl: Michigan +7 v Texas (BOL) : It's true that Michigan has been a mess since the end of the season due to the debacle that was the Sherrone Moore situation, but I still think there's a lot of value here on the Wolverines. Despite all of that, it appears as if pretty much everyone is suiting up for Michigan as best I can tell. Jordan Marshall looks to be ok and Kudzdal looked good late in my opinion, so they'll have capable guys to run the ball. Sack leader Derrick Moore will be a loss on defense, but they have plenty of guys available to play their game. The loss of Sherrone Moore is probably addition by subtraction, and I thought they looked their best, especially offensively in the games that Biff Poggi was running things. Michigan taught us all a lesson last year in my opinion when they pretty much dismissed Alabama in the Reliaquest Bowl despite having almost nobody from their defense suiting up. This is a proud bunch that we can expect a good effort. Texas is going to be missing a ton of guys, especially on the defense. Michael Taaffe is a huge loss as is Anthony Hill and Maalik Muhammad who was their best guy in the secondary and shut down some awesome receivers this year(Jeremiah Smith most notably). That's not to mention Trey Moore and Barham at linebacker. On offense, Wisner, Baxter and Jerrick Gibson are all out in the backfield, so I'm not sure who is going to be running the ball other than Manning. This Michigan defense will be a tough one for Arch. He's improved a ton the second half of the year, but without the backs and DeAndre Moore, it's going to be tough on him. Based on the roster situation, I think 7 is too much here. This is a team that was thoroughly outplayed by Kentucky, Florida and Georgia and played evenly with Mississippi State when they were at full strength, so I think Michigan can certainly stay within shouting distance of them when they're short handed. Texas might need a punt return TD from Ryan Niblick(and they might get it!!) in order to pull this one out. I like the Wolverines here.
 
20. Las Vegas Bowl: Utah -14 v Nebraska (BOL) : I always hesitate to lay this much, but this game will feature one of the biggest unit mismatches of the whole bowl season with this Utah rushing attack vs the Nebraska run defense. The Huskers were run over basically the entire year in the run game while Utah has the #1 ranked run offense in the country in yards per rush. The can run it from the running back position as well as at QB, and Devon Dampier is playing. Even if he wasn't, backup QB Byrd Ficklin was more than capable himself, having averaged 9.2 yards per rush and 10 TDs. Utah ran for 200+ in every game this year other than vs Texas Tech, and they approached or topped 300 against defenses much better than Nebraska's. I can't see the Huskers being anything other than helpless when Utah decides to run, which should be virtually every play. Nebraska would probably be able to run it on Utah as well if they had Emmett Johnson, but they don't. He was pretty much their entire offense by the end of the year after Raiola got hurt. As it is, they'll have backups and TJ Lateef to depend on, and that has not worked well. This matchup kind of reminds me of what the Huskers faced going into their game at Penn State late in the year, and that did not go well for them. Utah's state of mind, even though Kyle Whittingham took the Michigan job, should be positive because they crew was sold on permanent replacement and DC Morgan Scalley going in. The Nebraska offensive line is not at the level some of these other Big 12 teams were when they ran well on Utah, so I think Utah will have the edge at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Maybe Nebraska finds something, but the combo of that run defense against that Utah run offense and the idea of TJ Lateef trying to carry the mail has me running in the other direction.
 
Br@ssknux said:
19. Citrus Bowl: Michigan +7 v Texas (BOL) : It's true that Michigan has been a mess since the end of the season due to the debacle that was the Sherrone Moore situation, but I still think there's a lot of value here on the Wolverines. Despite all of that, it appears as if pretty much everyone is suiting up for Michigan as best I can tell. Jordan Marshall looks to be ok and Kudzdal looked good late in my opinion, so they'll have capable guys to run the ball. Sack leader Derrick Moore will be a loss on defense, but they have plenty of guys available to play their game. The loss of Sherrone Moore is probably addition by subtraction, and I thought they looked their best, especially offensively in the games that Biff Poggi was running things. Michigan taught us all a lesson last year in my opinion when they pretty much dismissed Alabama in the Reliaquest Bowl despite having almost nobody from their defense suiting up. This is a proud bunch that we can expect a good effort. Texas is going to be missing a ton of guys, especially on the defense. Michael Taaffe is a huge loss as is Anthony Hill and Maalik Muhammad who was their best guy in the secondary and shut down some awesome receivers this year(Jeremiah Smith most notably). That's not to mention Trey Moore and Barham at linebacker. On offense, Wisner, Baxter and Jerrick Gibson are all out in the backfield, so I'm not sure who is going to be running the ball other than Manning. This Michigan defense will be a tough one for Arch. He's improved a ton the second half of the year, but without the backs and DeAndre Moore, it's going to be tough on him. Based on the roster situation, I think 7 is too much here. This is a team that was thoroughly outplayed by Kentucky, Florida and Georgia and played evenly with Mississippi State when they were at full strength, so I think Michigan can certainly stay within shouting distance of them when they're short handed. Texas might need a punt return TD from Ryan Niblick(and they might get it!!) in order to pull this one out. I like the Wolverines here.
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I think this is the only way to play this game. Nothing I've seen or read indicates that the Horns are overly interested and it's not surprising given the failed expectations. As you note there are a ton of missing players plus shakeups in the coaching staff. Michigan should have quite a bit of success running the ball and controlling the clock. Feels like a 24 - 21 game, either way.
 
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2daBank said:
gotta love Iowa with the points, of course I damn near always play them when I can get close to a td. Pretty confident Iowa d is good enough to take away the qb run game and still not get torched thru the air. Seems to me Iowa outta be able to score 20 which I think be more than enough to cover if not win.
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Always loved hearing Tee Dub give his thoughts on SGU. This seems to be a spot where he’d go Iowa ML and +6.
 
21. Cotton Bowl: Miami +9.5 v Ohio State (BR) : One of the most interesting things of the first round of the playoffs was how Miami won their game with Texas A&M. Miami is a very well rounded team, solid at everything you would want EXCEPT running the ball. So how did they win? Through explosive runs from their non-explosive running back Mark Fletcher. Can he do it again? It's very unlikely against this Ohio State outfit, but if they do they'll probably win the game outright. Defensively, Miami is extremely good and very stout at the line of scrimmage, one of the few teams in the country that can give Ohio State problems in that area. For the second year running, Ohio State, though very efficient, is also a snail on offense. That means the clock will tick and the possessions will be limited. They've played two defenses with front 7's somewhere in the vicinity of Miami(Indiana and Texas) and in those 2 games, the Buckeyes have totaled 24 points. Miami has it's full complement of DBs, so they'll have a chance to be competitive with Smith and Lake. Offensively Miami is going to have a rough time because Carson Beck isn't good despite getting paid 48 million a year to be a douchebag. But if they can get some big plays from their receivers, or if Fletcher can get some kind of rhythm running the ball, the Canes have a chance. I think their defense will keep them in this game. (.5 seems like a lot here in what will probably be a low scoring game.
 
22. Orange Bowl: Oregon -2 v Texas Tech (BR) : If this was -120 or less I'd be suggesting the money line, but I'll settle for this at BR. Let me first say that the Orange Bowl should ALWAYS be played at night. They should have played this one on NYE and played the Cotton Bowl at the Cotton Bowl in it's traditional time slot. That would have been too logical guess. Texas Tech has had a great year, but we really still don't know much about them because they played a weak schedule. Per Sagarin, their schedule ranks 68th, which is the weakest in the Big 12 and is tied for the weakest in all of the Power 4. Their defense, I think we can agree, is legit, but the best offense they played was either Utah or BYU. Offensively, there are some warning signs. They were 96th in the country in red zone TD percentage, so they struggled mightily in getting TDs instead of field goals. That didn't hurt them against the teams on their schedule, but it will against a team like Oregon. They did not play a team with a top 25 ranking in yards per play. The top D they faced was Arizona State(27), and the Sun Devils held them to 276 yards in their only loss. Despite giving up a ton of points late to JMU in a heroic ATS performance by the Dukes, this Oregon defense ranks highly everywhere, including 2nd against the pass on a yards per play basis. It will be the best defense Tech has played by a mile. On the offensive side, Oregon will be in the best shape it's been in several weeks. Dakorian Moore and Gary Bryant are off the injury report, so the Ducks will have their top 4 wide receivers as well as their tight ends for this one. Ultimately, I think Oregon is a little more battle tested in this one, both this year and with their experience playing big time games. I think Lanning represents a coaching edge over McGuire, and assuming the coordinators are engaged(which I do), those two are very solid as well. I have a sizable future on Tech to win the whole thing so I hope they win, but I think Oregon's going to win this game, maybe by a decent amount.
 
23. Rose Bowl: Indiana -7 v Alabama (BOL) : By my numbers, this is one of the biggest discrepancies on paper of the entire bowl season. All Special teams metrics have this as a mismatch. Alabama ranks 76th in yards per play on offense, Indiana ranks 14th on defense. Bama is 127th in yards per rush, Indiana's 12th against. Other metrics don't have as big of a delta, but they all are in favor of Indiana. This isn't your older brother's Alabama. This Tide team is good, and resilient and they have a tough kid playing QB, but they have a lot of holes, and Curt Cignetti knows what all of them are, and so does his team. I loved Cignetti's answer at the most recent press conference when some crackerjack SEC media hack drawled at him "Whatre Y'all tellin them Indiana fellers 'bout handlin' that there Alabamer mystique?" Cignetti's response: "Yeah, well you would know a lot more about the mystique than they do because all they know is what they've seen on tape." If Alabama runs on Indiana, I'll be stunned. If Indiana doesn't run on Alabama, I'll be not stunned but very surprised. IU is great on 3rd down on both sides of the ball, they get pressure on the QB, they don't miss kicks, there's just not much they do inefficiently. I'll not be surprised if this ends up in the 31-10 range.
 
Br@ssknux said:
18. Reliaquest Bowl: Iowa +6 (-117) v Vanderbilt (BOL) : Big risk here going against Pavia and the #1 yards per play offense in the country, but I think this game could go either way in a game that might be one of the most enjoyable of all the bowl games to watch. The only notable opt out for either team(from what I can tell) is Vandy TE Eli Stowers. It's a big one, but only one guy sitting out is a nice reflection on both of these teams. Iowa's defense has been very good all year and they've been tested by 3 of the best offenses in the country in Indiana, Oregon and USC. In all three cases, they held those teams to their worst output of the year, especially in the passing game. Vandy is certainly an outstanding offense and they've feasted on subpar defenses, but Iowa is not that. When Vandy faced the toughest defenses on their schedule(Bama and Missouri) they struggled to 333 and 265 total yards in those games. Defensively, Vandy has been alright, but they really struggle on 3rd down, and that's something Iowa has been pretty decent at. They also give up explosives in the run game, and that's something that Iowa actually relies on and has a knack for hitting. This is just a feeling, but it seems like Pavia is due for some bad karma after his behavior coming off the Heisman ceremony. In addition to that, Iowa had a bad showing in their bowl last year, a game that they pissed away a late lead and had the embarrassment of being one of the only Big Ten teams to lay an egg in the bowls and THE only Big Ten team to lose to an SEC foe in the 6 games the conferences matchup up in. I think you'll get a great effort from them in this one, enough to have themselves with chance to win it at the end. They were a whisker from beating Oregon and Indiana, so I don't think they'll be overwhelmed by Vandy, as good as the 'Dores have been this year.
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Excellent analysis, and I agree with you but I can't bring myself to bet against either of these teams. Vandy is 9-2-1 ATS this year and Iowa is 8-3-1. I have won on both of them over and over this year and am 13-0 on them. Tey never get the respect they deserve. The line is down to 4x now. I'd be happy with either side, so I'm just going to enjoy this one
 
Br@ssknux said:
23. Rose Bowl: Indiana -7 v Alabama (BOL) : By my numbers, this is one of the biggest discrepancies on paper of the entire bowl season. All Special teams metrics have this as a mismatch. Alabama ranks 76th in yards per play on offense, Indiana ranks 14th on defense. Bama is 127th in yards per rush, Indiana's 12th against. Other metrics don't have as big of a delta, but they all are in favor of Indiana. This isn't your older brother's Alabama. This Tide team is good, and resilient and they have a tough kid playing QB, but they have a lot of holes, and Curt Cignetti knows what all of them are, and so does his team. I loved Cignetti's answer at the most recent press conference when some crackerjack SEC media hack drawled at him "Whatre Y'all tellin them Indiana fellers 'bout handlin' that there Alabamer mystique?" Cignetti's response: "Yeah, well you would know a lot more about the mystique than they do because all they know is what they've seen on tape." If Alabama runs on Indiana, I'll be stunned. If Indiana doesn't run on Alabama, I'll be not stunned but very surprised. IU is great on 3rd down on both sides of the ball, they get pressure on the QB, they don't miss kicks, there's just not much they do inefficiently. I'll not be surprised if this ends up in the 31-10 range.
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It wasn't an SEC media hack that asked that question, it was Brett McMurphy from on3 who thinks that Alabama may not score and was furious that Alabama made the playoff field. I love Cignetti's answer though. You can tell he's a Saban guy. But the media narratives that have been completely fabricated for this game are something else. It's going to be a really dark day for them when Alabama wins
 
Br@ssknux said:
22. Orange Bowl: Oregon -2 v Texas Tech (BR) : If this was -120 or less I'd be suggesting the money line, but I'll settle for this at BR. Let me first say that the Orange Bowl should ALWAYS be played at night. They should have played this one on NYE and played the Cotton Bowl at the Cotton Bowl in it's traditional time slot. That would have been too logical guess. Texas Tech has had a great year, but we really still don't know much about them because they played a weak schedule. Per Sagarin, their schedule ranks 68th, which is the weakest in the Big 12 and is tied for the weakest in all of the Power 4. Their defense, I think we can agree, is legit, but the best offense they played was either Utah or BYU. Offensively, there are some warning signs. They were 96th in the country in red zone TD percentage, so they struggled mightily in getting TDs instead of field goals. That didn't hurt them against the teams on their schedule, but it will against a team like Oregon. They did not play a team with a top 25 ranking in yards per play. The top D they faced was Arizona State(27), and the Sun Devils held them to 276 yards in their only loss. Despite giving up a ton of points late to JMU in a heroic ATS performance by the Dukes, this Oregon defense ranks highly everywhere, including 2nd against the pass on a yards per play basis. It will be the best defense Tech has played by a mile. On the offensive side, Oregon will be in the best shape it's been in several weeks. Dakorian Moore and Gary Bryant are off the injury report, so the Ducks will have their top 4 wide receivers as well as their tight ends for this one. Ultimately, I think Oregon is a little more battle tested in this one, both this year and with their experience playing big time games. I think Lanning represents a coaching edge over McGuire, and assuming the coordinators are engaged(which I do), those two are very solid as well. I have a sizable future on Tech to win the whole thing so I hope they win, but I think Oregon's going to win this game, maybe by a decent amount.
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I love Oregon tomorrow.
 
gps_3 said:
It wasn't an SEC media hack that asked that question, it was Brett McMurphy from on3 who thinks that Alabama may not score and was furious that Alabama made the playoff field. I love Cignetti's answer though. You can tell he's a Saban guy. But the media narratives that have been completely fabricated for this game are something else. It's going to be a really dark day for them when Alabama wins
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Believe it or not, I ran across a doctored version of the tape and thought it was real. Audio clearly spliced by some Indiana fan, and I got fooled by it LOL. (By the way, the average Indiana fan south of Indy is as crackerjack as anybody in Alabama, but I digress.) Just trying to be funny gps, hope I didn't offend. Having listened to the real audio though, it didn't sound like McMurphy. I've actually met him before, believe it or not. Whatever, you're probably right. I've seen the Fowler, etc videos. I'm sure Bama fans are going to be saving them....
 
That first and goal playcall by Iowa from the 4 yard line might have been the dumbest play call I"ve seen in years.
 
Frank Costanza said:
Random zebra-wannabe question....had the punter reversed field and gotten behind the LOS, and then kicked, would it have been legal?
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No clue, thought I accidentally switched to rugby for a second!! I would assume whatever the rule is for qb and whether it a legal forward pass or not would be same but I don’t know if qb allowed to cross los and go back either?
 
Br@ssknux said:
That first and goal playcall by Iowa from the 4 yard line might have been the dumbest play call I"ve seen in years.
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On the previous play when the TE didn't score, in the back of my mind I said Oh Shit this could be a fucking problem! Just ridiculous! btw you were deadeye dick on your comment that the Orange Bowl should always be at night...wtf play it on NYE.
 
Timh said:
On the previous play when the TE didn't score, in the back of my mind I said Oh Shit this could be a fucking problem! Just ridiculous! btw you were deadeye dick on your comment that the Orange Bowl should always be at night...wtf play it on NYE.
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Of all the things I've said on here, that might be the one I feel strongest about.
 
Thought I posted this last night! Sorry it's pretty late.

24. Sugar Bowl: Georgia -6.5 v Ole Miss (BR) : As everyone knows, this is a rematch of a game in Athens on October 18th in which the Bulldogs won by 8 and covered a spread similar to this one. In that game, just about everything went right for Ole Miss offensively for the vast majority of the game. In fact, Ole Miss scored TDs on their first 5 possessions, leading the game 35-26 late into the 3rd quarter. After that, the offense dried up and Georgia continued their game long habit of moving the ball virtually at will on the Ole Miss defense. The Dawgs totaled 510 yards, with equal effectiveness in the run and pass game. Since then, Georgia has continued to improve on their defensive profile. It was a somewhat shaky defense a that point, but that defense is currently on a run of holding Texas, Georgia Tech and Alabama under 300 yards and they've totaled 12 sacks over the past 5 games after getting 6 in their first 7. They've continuously improved their ability to put pressure on opposing QBs and it shows. Although Ole Miss handled Tulane, the Green Wave ended up with 425 total yards in the game. I don't think the Georgia offense is going to have much of a problem doing the same kind of damage they did to Ole Miss in the first game. If Ole Miss is going to cover this, they'll have to play exponentially better than they have most of the year. Georgia also has elite special teams and one of the best in game coaches in the country in Kirby Smart. Ole Miss played the vast majority of their first game perfectly, and they still didn't cover. I think Georgia is going to get the better of them in this one.
 
Br@ssknux said:
Thought I posted this last night! Sorry it's pretty late.

24. Sugar Bowl: Georgia -6.5 v Ole Miss (BR) : As everyone knows, this is a rematch of a game in Athens on October 18th in which the Bulldogs won by 8 and covered a spread similar to this one. In that game, just about everything went right for Ole Miss offensively for the vast majority of the game. In fact, Ole Miss scored TDs on their first 5 possessions, leading the game 35-26 late into the 3rd quarter. After that, the offense dried up and Georgia continued their game long habit of moving the ball virtually at will on the Ole Miss defense. The Dawgs totaled 510 yards, with equal effectiveness in the run and pass game. Since then, Georgia has continued to improve on their defensive profile. It was a somewhat shaky defense a that point, but that defense is currently on a run of holding Texas, Georgia Tech and Alabama under 300 yards and they've totaled 12 sacks over the past 5 games after getting 6 in their first 7. They've continuously improved their ability to put pressure on opposing QBs and it shows. Although Ole Miss handled Tulane, the Green Wave ended up with 425 total yards in the game. I don't think the Georgia offense is going to have much of a problem doing the same kind of damage they did to Ole Miss in the first game. If Ole Miss is going to cover this, they'll have to play exponentially better than they have most of the year. Georgia also has elite special teams and one of the best in game coaches in the country in Kirby Smart. Ole Miss played the vast majority of their first game perfectly, and they still didn't cover. I think Georgia is going to get the better of them in this one.
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I love Georgia as much I loved Oregon today. Probably more.

Thanks for all your dedication and work on the writeups and Happy New Year!
 
I think the football fan in me wants to see ole miss have some success. They have gotten the shaft with kiffen gate, but they are probably better off in the long run to be rid of the self serving ball coach.

But for reasons you pointed out, amongst others, unless the rebs play perfectly and georgia plays like they did in the earlier matchup, i believe the doga can cover this.

Ive developed this theory where ole miss starts hot, but the adrenaline wears off a bit and the talent gap takes over. I do see some points being scored here, i think, so it should be a good one.

Ill be on this one as well. Lets make some money today!
 
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Br@ssknux said:
23. Rose Bowl: Indiana -7 v Alabama (BOL) : By my numbers, this is one of the biggest discrepancies on paper of the entire bowl season. All Special teams metrics have this as a mismatch. Alabama ranks 76th in yards per play on offense, Indiana ranks 14th on defense. Bama is 127th in yards per rush, Indiana's 12th against. Other metrics don't have as big of a delta, but they all are in favor of Indiana. This isn't your older brother's Alabama. This Tide team is good, and resilient and they have a tough kid playing QB, but they have a lot of holes, and Curt Cignetti knows what all of them are, and so does his team. I loved Cignetti's answer at the most recent press conference when some crackerjack SEC media hack drawled at him "Whatre Y'all tellin them Indiana fellers 'bout handlin' that there Alabamer mystique?" Cignetti's response: "Yeah, well you would know a lot more about the mystique than they do because all they know is what they've seen on tape." If Alabama runs on Indiana, I'll be stunned. If Indiana doesn't run on Alabama, I'll be not stunned but very surprised. IU is great on 3rd down on both sides of the ball, they get pressure on the QB, they don't miss kicks, there's just not much they do inefficiently. I'll not be surprised if this ends up in the 31-10 range.
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Great call here!
 
I really don’t understand anyone that watched Indiana this year and watched Bama- how did they think Alabama would win. I really think Alabama fans rarely watch other teams play. I’ve been shout to take Indy literally seconds after the line came out. Biggest bet of my life and I ended up hedging half of it because of so many respected cappers on Alabama. Totally on me for doing that. I did get a good bit more at halftime!

Anyway- nice writeups!! You’re one of the few I check on regularly!!!
 
Br@ssknux said:
23. Rose Bowl: Indiana -7 v Alabama (BOL) : By my numbers, this is one of the biggest discrepancies on paper of the entire bowl season. All Special teams metrics have this as a mismatch. Alabama ranks 76th in yards per play on offense, Indiana ranks 14th on defense. Bama is 127th in yards per rush, Indiana's 12th against. Other metrics don't have as big of a delta, but they all are in favor of Indiana. This isn't your older brother's Alabama. This Tide team is good, and resilient and they have a tough kid playing QB, but they have a lot of holes, and Curt Cignetti knows what all of them are, and so does his team. I loved Cignetti's answer at the most recent press conference when some crackerjack SEC media hack drawled at him "Whatre Y'all tellin them Indiana fellers 'bout handlin' that there Alabamer mystique?" Cignetti's response: "Yeah, well you would know a lot more about the mystique than they do because all they know is what they've seen on tape." If Alabama runs on Indiana, I'll be stunned. If Indiana doesn't run on Alabama, I'll be not stunned but very surprised. IU is great on 3rd down on both sides of the ball, they get pressure on the QB, they don't miss kicks, there's just not much they do inefficiently. I'll not be surprised if this ends up in the 31-10 range.
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Great run here in the big games…..
Had to give you props here though 😉
 
slim5150 said:
I think the football fan in me wants to see ole miss have some success. They have gotten the shaft with kiffen gate, but they are probably better off in the long run to be rid of the self serving ball coach.

But for reasons you pointed out, amongst others, unless the rebs play perfectly and georgia plays like they did in the earlier matchup, i believe the doga can cover this.

Ive developed this theory where ole miss starts hot, but the adrenaline wears off a bit and the talent gap takes over. I do see some points being scored here, i think, so it should be a good one.

Ill be on this one as well. Lets make some money today!
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Good points Slim. What surprised me was how much better Ole Miss was in the second half. Georgia and Smart have never given us any evidence that they aren't a second half team, and Kirby thrives on adjustments throughout the game. The 4th down decision followed by the missed assignment on Perkins was the biggest change in the game, in addition to that ridiculous stretch of plays that Chambliss made on the drive before that.

I'm with you. Once it became clear that our cover was a pipe dream, I was hoping Ole Miss would pull it out. That game with Miami is gonna be a fun handicap. Ole Miss's defense played about as well as they could in this game, other than the late DPIs
 
Passing on the Armed Forces Bowl between Texas State and Rice.The line has ballooned up to 16.5 because Rice is pretty unimpressive on paper and their QB for some reason isn't playing? I can see why people are loading up on Texas State because their offense was among the best in the Group of 5 and Rice's defense was terrible, but the reason Texas State was only 6-6 despite that offense was that they found myriad ways to be inefficient. If you foresee a 48-14 type game, I can also conjure up those thoughts, but no thanks.
 
25. Liberty Bowl: Navy -7 v Cincinnati (BOL) : Sticking with the momentum of the service academies here. After Army's dismantling of UConn a week ago, the academies are now 12-1 straight up and ATS in their last 13, and Navy is a perfect 7-0 ATS in bowls since 2013 and 6-1 straight up. They're favored by a TD for a couple reasons: First Cincy QB Brendan Sorsby is not playing, and second, Cincy's defense is weak and 6 of their starters including by far their best player (DT Dontay Corleone) are sitting out. navy, of course, has no opt outs. Cincy can definitely eun the ball, and it looks like their top RBs are playing, but Navy has faced good running attacks in the past(Memphis and USF) and beat both of them at full strength. Navy of course will have no opt outs, and they've played much better on defense in recent weeks. They'll be facing a below average Cincy defense in every category, and they've got weapons that can move the ball at will on shaky defenses. Blake Horvath, Alex Tecza and Eli Heidenreich should all have success. Service Academies are an auto play until they prove they shouldn't be, and the matchup would have me on Navy regardless of the ATS history.
 
26. Duke's Mayo Bowl: Wake +3 v Mississippi State (BOL) : Wake will be missing more guys than Mississippi State will(at least it appears that way) including Demond Claiborne, the best offensive player for Wake, but there's no way I can pass on taking points with the clearly better team. Wake was 8-4 and should have been 9-3 if they didn't botch their game against Duke in a game they dominated. Mississippi State ended up 5-7 and got the gift of several programs passing on a bowl to even be playing. Blake Shapen is sitting out, but they'll have Kamario Taylor, a runner who played pretty well against Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl back there at QB. Although Wake's offense was not great, they still have the edge over the Bulldog defense, which was the get right defense for most of the SEC teams they played this year. They're 106th in yards per play and 120th against the run. Wake should have the edge on both lines of scrimmage, and the Wake defense was a legit unit this year, as they shut down the majority of the offenses they played. I'm a big fan of Jake Dickert and all indications are that he is taking this game seriously and so is his players. Lastly, the ACC has gotten the better of the SEC in head to heads in a lot of cases, and Wake was much higher in the conference pecking order than Mississippi State was. Even with the opt outs for Wake, I think I'm getting points with the better team, so I'll take it. Dickert mentioned that only 4 teams at Wake have won 9 games, and they are focused on doing that They're well coached, and I trust them way more than I do a sub .500 team being favored over an 8 win team.
 
Semi-final games are on Thursday and Friday of next week, so I'll be capping those sooner rather than later and I'm hoping to have some write ups on those done pretty soon. Thanks to everyone for participating in the thread. Lots of fun, just like always.
 
I should mention also that I'm not gonna play the Holiday Bowl between Arizona and SMU. I want to play Arizona, but they are not announcing who is playing, so that will be a total guessing game. It's close to a pick, I think AZ is a slight favorite. If I knew the AZ defense was going to be a full strength(especially the secondary) I'd be playing AZ, but we have no indication and their top corners (Trey Stukes especially) are opt out candidates for sure. I doesn't look like SMU has anyone sitting out, but they might be sandbagging too. Gun to head I'd play AZ and hope their guys play(or that they have some depth). But there's no gun to my head. Should be a nice matchup though.
 
Br@ssknux said:
Passing on the Armed Forces Bowl between Texas State and Rice.The line has ballooned up to 16.5 because Rice is pretty unimpressive on paper and their QB for some reason isn't playing? I can see why people are loading up on Texas State because their offense was among the best in the Group of 5 and Rice's defense was terrible, but the reason Texas State was only 6-6 despite that offense was that they found myriad ways to be inefficient. If you foresee a 48-14 type game, I can also conjure up those thoughts, but no thanks.
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I'm going with the Texas St. team total over 34* on this one fwiw.

Appreciate your insight and comments in here Brass, best of luck the rest of the season...

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inZane said:
I'm going with the Texas St. team total over 34* on this one fwiw.

Appreciate your insight and comments in here Brass, best of luck the rest of the season...

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I'd be surprised if you lost that one inZane. For whatever reason, I've never been much of a team totals, halfs, quarters and of course totals guy. Sometimes I feel like I should pay more attention to team totals.
 
I know its not done yet……. But just wanted to say thanks for what has been one helluva informative thread. You haven’t been perfect (room for improvement!) but youve provided a ton of winners and more importantly a slew of opt out/in information in one place. I likely speak for most of us when I say thanks for saving us countless hours trying to piece together this insane bowl schedule and madness. You are an asset brother and we are all blessed to have your insights at our fingertips.
 
PNGFROM2003 said:
I know its not done yet……. But just wanted to say thanks for what has been one helluva informative thread. You haven’t been perfect (room for improvement!) but youve provided a ton of winners and more importantly a slew of opt out/in information in one place. I likely speak for most of us when I say thanks for saving us countless hours trying to piece together this insane bowl schedule and madness. You are an asset brother and we are all blessed to have your insights at our fingertips.
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Well said and so true
 
PNGFROM2003 said:
I know its not done yet……. But just wanted to say thanks for what has been one helluva informative thread. You haven’t been perfect (room for improvement!) but youve provided a ton of winners and more importantly a slew of opt out/in information in one place. I likely speak for most of us when I say thanks for saving us countless hours trying to piece together this insane bowl schedule and madness. You are an asset brother and we are all blessed to have your insights at our fingertips.
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Thanks PNG, that's a really nice thing to say. As I've said, it's therapeutic for me. I'm basically just thinking out loud on this thing. As for the opt outs and everything, something I've done is to subscribe to the Illinois 24/7 site, Illini Inquirer. It's run by a guy named Jeremy Werner who does a great job and works his ass off, so I figure I can part with $100 a year to support his work. One nice offshoot of that, however is that a premium subscription there gives me access to the entire 24/7 network and all the homer sites throughout the country. Some are better than others but pretty much all of the power 4 sites will have someone covering the bowl game for their team and they'll do their best to let people know what the latest info is on who's playing, who isn't and what the mindset of the team might be. It's helped quite a bit. Also, Stuckey from Action's opt out tracker is a nice resource, although it's still a guessing game at the end of the day. Figuring out who is going to be playing QB for these teams is most important. Most of the time you can make a pretty reasonable guess as to how they'll look if you know who's in. There's only been a couple times where someone has surprised. For example, TCU beat me because Ken Seals was way better than I thought he'd be, but those instances have been rare.

Couple more to handicap, and no worries about opt outs, only injuries from here on in, which is nice. Thanks again for the kind words.
 
27. Ole Miss +3.5 v Miami(FL) (BOL) : This was one of the tougher handicaps, and I thought about taking a pass on this, but I ended up taking the points here in a game that i think is going to come down to the wire. This is a strength on strength situation with the Ole Miss offense against the Miami defense, and then a meh/meh scenario on the other side of the ball for these two teams. Ultimately for me, this was all about the roles. I think you have to play the dog in this game. I liked Miami a ton more as a dog( as they were in the first two playoff games) than I do as a favorite. All of the narratives about Miami, and especially about Cristobal come into play when he's favored. The Ole Miss defense has been just ok this year, but they looked pretty good, especially down the stretch against Georgia, and the Miami offense isn't really all that explosive. I thought the Ole Miss defensive line actually got the better of the play in the 2nd half against Georgia, and although the Miami OL is better than Georgia's, Perkins and Will Echols can hold their own in my opinion. On the other side, Miami has been merciless on defense, especially those two pass rushers, Bain and Mesidor. However, if there's any offense, or in particular QB who can exist against those maniacs, it's probably the Rebels. Trinidad Chambliss hardly ever gets sacked and somehow avoid turnovers in the process. They have several receivers that are tough matchups, and Kewan Lacy will be the best back they've faced in the playoffs, by quite a bit in my opinion. I don't think Miami will be able to run away from Ole Miss in this game unless they get a defensive score or Toney takes back a punt, but Ole Miss is very good on special teams(13th) and as I mentioned, Chambliss has not turned it over(only 3 picks). They've also got a weapon in that kicker Cordiero who was bombing field goals last week with 20 yards to spare while the Miami kicker has been shaky. My only hesitation with Ole Miss is that all of their positive data points have come against the SEC. I'm not trying to be sarcastic when I say that they SEC has not fared well outside of the conference, and it's not just in the bowls. I think the chances are very good that this is close, so more than a FG is very attractive, especially when I think Cristobal has a major bonehead episode left in him this year.
 
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