Ramblings from the Ultimate Sports Sentimentalist

Here are the picks everybody’s been waiting for.  Enjoy and feel free to make any comments/criticisms you’d like.

New Mexico Bowl: Fresno State 31, Wyoming 10- The Cowboys are probably the worst team in this year’s bowl field, which these days is quite an accomplishment.

St. Petersburg Bowl: Rutgers 14, Central Florida 10- Two teams who managed to garner impressive 8-4 records by playing extremely weak schedules.

New Orleans Bowl: Southern Miss 63, Middle Tenn. State 59 (9 OTs)- This is definitely wishful thinking on my part, as I will be attending this game on Sunday night.  A nine overtime bowl classic would definitely be a sight to see.

Las Vegas Bowl: Oregon State 35, Brigham Young 31- Should be a great game, but Mike Riley is 5-0 in bowl games with the Beavers and the Cougars may be getting bored with the Vegas bowl as they return for a 5th straight year.

Poinsettia Bowl: Utah 27, California 24- No matter who they are playing, who their coach is, or what bowl they are in the Utes don’t lose bowl games.  The winners of 8 straight bowl games should find a way to pull out a close victory against a Bears team that has failed to show up in several games this season.

Hawaii Bowl: Nevada 49, SMU 31- The Wolfpack’s rushing offense is one of the best in the country and SMU’srushing defense is one of the worst.  Can we say, Uh Oh.  The Mustangs will be motivated and be put up some points, but when push comes to shove, they won’t be able to hang with the Pack for a full 60 minutes.

Little Caesars Bowl: Ohio 28, Marshall 17- Marshall comes in without their head coach and with a meager 6-6 record featuring a blowout loss to UTEP to end their season.

Meineke Car Care Bowl: Pitt 31, North Carolina 21- Everybody is talking about UNC’s home-field advantage in this game, but they played in this bowl last year and got beat by a West Virginia team who was much worse than this Pitt squad.

Emerald Bowl: Southern Cal 28, Boston College 20- Everybody is wondering whether or not the Trojans will show up for this game, but even if they don’t, they have still have too much talent for the Eagles.  If you want proof of that just check out this fact from Pat Forde: “According to Phil Steele’s 2009 College Football Preview ratings, Boston College does not have a single player who was in the national top 20 prospects at his position coming out of high school. USC has 50.”  I’m still stunned that my preseason # 1 and preseason # 50 are playing each other in a bowl game.

Music City Bowl: Clemson 27, Kentucky 17- The Tigers are just too good this year to have another letdown performance like they did in this bowl 3 years ago against the Cats.

Independence Bowl: Texas A &M 38, Georgia 35- Upset special!!!  Georgia has laid so many eggs this season that it’s hard for me to think that they will be ready to play in Shreveport, especially  for a bowl they certainly aren’t proud to be in.  On the other hand, A & M will come in motivated and ready to build on their late season offensive resurgence.

EagleBank Bowl: Temple 24, UCLA 21- The favored Bruins are making a cross-country trip to play in a lower-tier bowl game that was beneath their preseason expectations.  On the other hand, this will be like the Super Bowl for the Owls who haven’t bowled since the 1979 Garden State Bowl.  In fact, it has been 75 years since Temple played in a bowl game that is still in existence (1934 Sugar Bowl).  That streak may actually live in on, as I don’t know how many more years a Washington D.C. bowl game played in the archaic RFK Stadium can stick around.

Champs Sports Bowl: Miami-FL 24, Wisconsin 17- The U struggled down the stretch, but I still don’t see a Wisconsin team, who got shellacked by a similarly athletic Florida State team in this bowl last year, to pull off the upset.  Not to mention the fact that the Big 10 has a 1-6 record in this bowl game.

Humanitarian Bowl: Idaho 41, Bowling Green 38- You got to like the Vandals (my preseason # 118thranked team in the country) to pull this one out at home.  It’s been a magical season so far for them, and I think it may culminate with a bowl victory.  I’d also like to dispel the myth that BG is coming into this game red-hot while Idaho is slumping.  Yes, Bowling Green has one four straight but all of the wins were against bowless teams with losing records.  On the other hand, Idaho was 1-4 in its last five but 3 of the 4 losses came against top 40 teams who are all bowling.  “Streaking stats” like that tend to bother me just because they ignore the fact that a team can go on a long winning or losing streak just because they play a lot of difficult or easy games in a row.

Holiday Bowl: Arizona 20, Nebraska 10- Yes, Nebraska’s intimidating defense will shut down Arizona’s usually potent offense for a majority of this game, but I still can’t get out of my head the painful memories of watching that abysmal Cornhuskeroffense try to move the ball up the field with all the skill of a Pop Warner squad.  The Husker D is going to have to setup all of their points, and I don’t know how many times they can do that.

Armed Forces Bowl: Air Force 35, Houston 28-   The Cougars may very well lay an egg in this one after a disappointing loss to ECU.  After their hot early season start, this Houston squad has been extremely inconsistent.  I also don’t envision a defense who gave up 45 points to Tulsa, 43 to Southern Miss, and 37 to UCF to be able to stop the Falcon’s potent triple-option offense.  Meanwhile, Air Force has a strong pass defense to slow down the Cougars.

Sun Bowl: Stanford 24, Oklahoma 20- Another upset special!  Stanford has become the trendy upset pick here, and while I usually shy away from those, I truly believe Gerhartwill be the difference in this one.  Stanford also comes in to this game with much more motivation (if it’s possible to be motivated by playing in El Paso), as this will be their first bowl game since the Ty Willingham days.

Texas Bowl: Navy 20, Missouri 17- The Midshipmen are due a bowl win after three straight close bowl losses.  Mizzou also hasn’t seen anything like Navy’s triple-option offense in the Big 12.

Copper Bowl: Minnesota 23, Iowa State 17- Still sticking to my guns and protesting overcommercializationof bowl games by calling this game by its true name.  As far as this match up goes, even though the Cyclones will be playing this game with a lot more motivation, I just can’t pick Iowa State here as they are without a doubt the worst the BCS team in a bowl game this season.  If you don’t believe me, please consider that their 6-6 record includes zero wins over bowl eligible teams that didn’t cough up the ball six times against them.

Peach Bowl: Virginia Tech 20, Tennessee 14- Like other upper echelon ACC teams, the Hokies could have had a great season if they didn’t throw in a clunker or two along the way (see home loss to UNC).  Regardless, Tech just has too much talent to lose to a Tennessee squad that could be distracted by the impending NCAA investigations.

Outback Bowl: Auburn 31, Northwestern 20- Chizik’s squad struggled down the strech until their impressive performance against Bama.  It’s just hard to pick the Wildcats here given the fact they haven’t won a bowl game since 1948 and have a horrible loss to Syracuse on their 2009 resume.     

Gator Bowl: West Virginia 28, Florida State 24- The Mountaineers are the more talented team, and the Bowden retirement factor can only go so far.  Miami’s egg  in their “Orange Bowl” finale should be a reminder of what can happen when a team has to play under the immense pressure of trying to win an emotional “send-off game”.

Capital One Bowl: LSU 17, Penn State 13- Expect a snoozefest in this matchup of disappointment teams, who have exactly zero wins over current top 25 teams.  Going with the Tigers though just because the Tigers have managed to look respectable against an array of tough SEC opponents. 

Rose Bowl: Oregon 24, Ohio State 13- Several reasons why I see Oregon winning this game pulling away: 1) Ohio State is your typical overrated Big 10 Champ, 2) Ohio State’s defense won’t be able to stop Oregon’s spread attack, and 3) Ohio State’s offense is really bad.

Sugar Bowl: Florida 38, Cincinnati 21- Both teams come in feeling blue as they each fell short of their national title dreams and lost key members of their coaching staffs.  Despite my love for the off-the-radar unbeatens this year (Boise, Cincy, and TCU), I’ve always felt that the Bearcats were by far the worst of the bunch.  Their defense is horrendous and it will get manhandled, just like we saw in the Pitt and UConn games.  The difference will be that the Bearcats offense won’t be able to move the ball like they did against the Florida D.  All in all, this is just a bad match up for the Cats.

International Bowl: South Florida 31, Northern Illinois 17- As I said in my bowl ranking entry last week, there are some bowl games that don’t need to exist and this is one of them.  The only way the Bulls lose this game as if they feel the same way I do about this game and give a non-existent effort.  The MAC has never beaten their Big East opponent in this game and have only made it close one time.

Papajohns.com Bowl: South Carolina 17, Connecticut 14- Expect a low-scoring yet entertaining slugfest between these two squads.  UConnwould love to  cap off its emotionally-charged season with its first win ever over an SEC school.  The Huskies will play hard, and SC has not played well in bowl games under Spurrier.  If the Cocks don’t show up in this one, then they will get beat by this overachieving UConn squad.

Cotton Bowl: Ole Miss 42, Oklahoma State 38- Talk about the disappointment bowl.  Many experts considered these squads to be preseason national title contenders.  At any rate, I give Ole Miss the edge here just because the Rebels at least have one respectable win on their resume (LSU).

Liberty Bowl: Arkansas 28, East Carolina 27- This is a game where I’m so close to calling an upset special, but just can’t quite pull the trigger on it.  ECU has once again made their annual late-season surge under Holtz, and if they can shut down Houston’s potent offensive attack then there is nothing stopping them from doing the same against the Hogs.  However, I still have to give Arkansas the edge because the Pirates have lost six straight game to BCS conference opponents and the  C-USA representative has not beaten their SEC opponent since this bowl game began matching those two conferences against each other.

Alamo Bowl: Texas Tech 49, Michigan State 35- The Red Raiders are perfectly capable of laying an egg in a bowl game under Leach (see last year’s Cotton Bowl), but they are going to have try awful hard to do it against a Michigan State team who was pretty bad even before having 8 of its players suspended. 

National Title Game: TCU 28, Boise State 21- The Horned Frogs will prove they are the best team in the country by winning an instant classic over Boise.  Expect the Frogs’ D to be the difference, as they will make stops when they need to.  I really don’t know what exactly will happen here, but we do know one thing, one of these teams will trail in a football game for the first time since mid-October.  Let’s compare that to one of the CitiBank Bowl participants, Texas, who last trailed in a game literally one second ago.

Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech 28, Iowa 23- The outcome of this game may depend on the effectiveness of the banged up Ricky Stanzi who it appears will be returning after an ankle injury he suffered in the Northwestern game.  If he can move the ball  against GT’s somewhat porous defense then they have a chance of winning.  However, if the Hawkeyes’ offense looks like it did after Stanziwent down, then I don’t think they’ll be able to hang with the Jackets.  I know Iowa’s defense has been solid all year, but it’s a whole different ballgame when you’re up against a dual threat triple-option attack like GT’s.

GMAC Bowl: Central Michigan 49, Troy 42- Expect a ton of points in this one.  Troy and Central Michigan are the best teams either of  their conferences has seen in several years, but you’ve got to go with the best of the MAC to beat the best of the Sun Belt.  I was, however, a lot more confident about this pick before CMU’s head coach left for Cincy. 

CitiBank Bowl: Alabama 23, Texas 21- It’s funny how the public perception of teams shifts so rapidly.  If this game had been played a month ago Texas would have definitely been favorite.  The Longhorns had demolished nearly every opponent they played all year, and the Tide has struggled to beat South Carolina, Tennessee, and LSU.  Then all of a sudden Bama annihilates Florida in the SEC Championship Game and Texas struggles to beat A & M and Nebraska, and everybody thinks the Tide wins the BCS Championship in a runaway.  These teams are more evenly-matched then people think I’m tempted to pick an upset here based on the psychological advantage the Horn’s have via their underdog status.  However, I just can’t go against the SEC’s perfect record in BCS Title Games.  Until someone topples the Southeastern Conference dynasty, then I’m not picking against them.