Lots of stuff on the plate the next couple of days.

• Georgia @ Georgia Tech (FSN, 6:00 PM CST) in basketball. Tech has struggled since their victory over Memphis in Maui. It’s hard to take away much of anything from the blowout over Centerary Monday night other than that Morrow shot well, which may indicate he has a finally recovered from an off-season injury. Georgia is playing very inspired ball right now and beat Gonzaga earlier this week. Tech has played with little inspiration, especially on defense. Hopefully we can crank it up tonight.
• New Orleans Bowl, Troy vs. Rice (ESPN2, 7:00 PM CST): WTF, mate? Rice makes a bowl for the first time since 1961, Troy makes a bowl for the second time in their history. No idea who is going to win this. C-USA is obviously a better conference than the Sun Belt, but I mean, we’re talking about Rice here. I’ve seen Troy in person this season, but I’m not sure that helps. I don’t even know if Rice still runs that wishbone/flexbone offense – I’d have to guess not since they have a WR who’s caught 20 TDs. Troy runs a wide open offense – usually 4 or 5 WR on the field at a given time. I expect some points to be scored, but the question is who will come out on top? I picked Troy here, but it could go either way.
• Papajohns.com Bowl, East Carolina vs. South Florida (ESPN2, Noon CST): There is nothing remotely interesting about this game except that it’s being played down in Birmingham at the legendary Legion Field. Expect to see lots of Iron Bowl footage during the game. I probably won’t even be able to see it. Also, I thought the “.com” thing died like 3-4 years ago? Even the Insight.com Bowl is now the Insight Bowl. Just silly. I also like USF for what that’s worth.
• New Mexico Bowl, New Mexico vs. San Jose State (ESPN, 3:30 CST): Did You Know that SJSU has their own passenger jet plane? It’s true – I saw it while I was landing at San Jose’s airport. It was one of those old tri-engine jets from the early 70’s, like the DC-10 or the Lockheed 1101 or some such. Anyway, while New Mexico has home field advantage here, they’re just not a good football team. SJSU is back from the basement of the WAC and should take care of business.
• Armed Forces Bowl, Utah vs. Tulsa (ESPN, 7:00 CST): The Mountain West started well, but I don’t see New Mexico winning and I don’t see Utah winning either, though I don’t really know to be honest. Tulsa should be much more motivated than Utah’s previous bowl opponent, and Tulsa is a lot closer to Fort Worth than Salt Lake City is, so I give Tulsa the edge.

That takes care of the bowls through Saturday. I’ll put something up about the Hawaii Bowl on Saturday night or sometime Sunday. Enjoy the holidays and the bowl games, kids!