Bowl Games 2015: Four Days ‘Til Christmas

Let’s take a look at the seven(!) games that remain before Christmas.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Monday, December 21
2:30: South Florida vs. Western Kentucky (Miami Beach Bowl @ Miami, FL; ESPN): On October 31, the Bulls were 2-4 and appeared headed toward oblivion. Then, they discovered they had an offense, and thus won their last four games, including a comprehensive 44-23 win over then-ranked Temple. Proving that wasn’t a fluke, they then inflicted a 65-27 drubbing on Cincinnati. I don’t think I need to get into what they did against a Central Florida team that went 0-12. The Hilltoppers, meanwhile, needed no such miraculous season-ending streaks. They simply dominated their C-USA foes. Their only two losses on the season are a late-FG loss to Indiana and a 28-point loss to LSU, because, well, LSU is LSU and WKU is WKU. At any rate, their extended run of domination and consistency is what is making me lean toward Western Kentucky.
Confidence: 12
Previous Meetings: Six, actually, with four them occurring between 1997 and 2000, and then again in 2009 and 2010. USF is 4-2, having won the last four in a row, including 24-12 in the 2010 game.
Last bowl game: For the Bulls, it was the 2010 Car Care Bowl, in which they beat Clemson 31-26. (Oof.) The Hilltoppers won last year’s Bahamas Bowl 49-48 after surviving one of the craziest plays of the 2014 season.
Announcers: Dave Lamont and Desmond Howard

Tuesday, December 22
4:30: Akron vs. Utah State (Potato Bowl @ Boise, ID; ESPN): I have the Aggies in a slight upset, but I feel pretty good about it. Why? Well, at least three of their six wins are better than any of Akron’s wins, and they don’t figure to give up a lot of points to the Zips. As for the chance of snow at this game, the forecast is currently clear with temperatures in the mid-30’s around kickoff, so it’s not looking good.
Confidence: 23
Previous Meetings: This is the first meeting between these two teams.
Last bowl game: The Zips’s last taste of the post-season was the 2005 Motor City Bowl, which they lost to Memphis 38-31. This is their second ever bowl game. For the Aggies, their fifth straight game returns to the roots of their streak, where they went to both the 2011 and 2012 Potato Bowls. They beat UTEP in last year’s New Mexico Bowl 21-6.
Announcers: Mark Neely and Mike Bellotti

7:00: Toledo vs. Temple (Boca Raton Bowl @ Boca Raton, FL; ESPN): Suffice it to say, no chance of snow here, with temperatures in the 80’s at kick-off. I never really bought into the Owls at any point this season, and I’m continuing not to in this game. Toledo, to me, appears to be about as good on defense and is a little better at moving the ball. Going with the Rockets.
Confidence: 13
Previous Meetings: My sources are a bit contradictory on this one. I’m going to discount the 1962 meeting and say Toledo is 5-3 against the Owls, and won their last meeting in 2011 36-13.
Last bowl game: The Rockets would have a six-game bowl streak had they gone bowling with a 7-5 record in 2013, but alas, we can only say this is their second straight. They beat Arkansas State in last year’s GoDaddy.com Bowl 63-44. Temple’s last bowl game was the 2011 New Mexico Bowl, in which they beat Wyoming 37-15.
Announcers: Allen Bestwick and Dan Hawkins

Wednesday, December 23
4:30: Boise State vs. Northern Illinois (Poinsettia Bowl @ San Diego, CA; ESPN): If the Boise States of the world can have rebuilding years, this certainly qualifies as one for the Broncos. Their offense has been especially inconsistent as they try to find their next quarterback. The Huskies started running into trouble once they got into the meat of their MAC schedule, and their offense deserted them in loses to Ohio and Bowling Green to close out the season. Going with Boise, but only by a bit.
Confidence: 14
Previous Meetings: This is the first meeting between these two teams.
Last bowl game: This is the Broncos’s fourteenth straight bowl game, dating back to the 2002 Humanitarian Bowl. They beat Arizona in last season’s Fiesta Bowl, 38-30. This is NIU’s eight straight bowl game, dating to a 17-10 loss to Louisiana Tech in the 2008 Independence Bowl. They lost 52-23 to Marshall in last year’s Boca Raton Bowl.
Announcers: Beth Mowins and David Diaz-Infante

8:00: Bowling Green vs. Georgia Southern (GoDaddy Bowl @ Mobile, AL; ESPN): Bowling Green comes in as the MAC champions, and other than a loss to a game Toledo squad, it was never really in doubt. Georgia Southern, meanwhile, somehow just lost to Georgia State. (Still trying to process that one.) The ranking systems love BGSU as well, and I’m inclined to agree with them.
Confidence: 24
Previous Meetings: This is the first meeting between these two teams.
Last bowl game: This is Bowling Green’s fourth straight bowl game. They beat South Alabama 33-28 in the inaugural Camellia Bowl last year. This is Georgia Southern’s first ever bowl game.
Announcers: Tom Hart and Andre Ware

Thursday, December 24
Noon: Western Michigan vs. Middle Tennessee State (Bahamas Bowl @ Nassau, Bahamas; ESPN): On record alone, these 7-5 teams look even. That’s pretty much it, though. The Broncos played a tougher schedule in a tougher conference, but was able to hang with some of those teams. The Blue Raiders lost to every superior team they played, usually by a lot, and mainly feasted on C-USA’s bottom of the barrel teams. As long as Western Michigan isn’t too tired from rowing to the Bahamas, they should be okay in this one.
Confidence: 25
Previous Meetings: This is the first meeting between these two teams.
Last bowl game: Western Michigan lost 38-24 to Air Force in last year’s Potato Bowl. MTSU last appeared in the 2013 Armed Forces Bowl, where they lost 24-6 to Navy.
Announcers: Steve Levy, Mack Brown, and Mark May
Fun fact: As of this writing, Popeye’s does not have any locations in the Bahamas.

8:00: Cincinnati vs. San Diego State (Hawaii Bowl @ Honolulu, HI; ESPN): One of these teams doesn’t play offense. The other doesn’t play defense. Combine them into a game that no one wants to be in, and you get… well, I have no idea really. I like the Aztecs, though: they’ve won nine straight, riding the streak all the way to the Mountain West title. The biggest stumbling block for them is that this is reward they got for winning the conference, instead of the MWC’s customary Las Vegas Bowl bid (which went to BYU instead).
Confidence: 15
Previous Meetings: Just one, back in 2007. Cincy won 52-23.
Last bowl game: This is the fifth straight bowl game for the Bearcats, dating to the 2011 Liberty Bowl. The lost to Virginia Tech in last year’s Military Bowl 33-17.
Announcers: Adam Amin and Greg McElroy

Bowl Games 2015: Opening Slate

We’ll start off with an overview of Saturday’s games, but of course I’ve updated the schedule page with my predictions for all of the games. Confidence values for ESPN’s bowl pick ’em are tentative, as I’m writing this ahead of time.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Saturday, December 19
2:00: New Mexico vs. Arizona (New Mexico Bowl @ Albuquerque, NM; ESPN): Bob Davie’s back in a bowl game! His hometown Lobos have basically no chance, though.
Confidence: 30
Previous Meetings: Being from neighboring states and in the same conference a long time, these two have met 46 times. Unsurpsingly, though, Arizona holds a 43-20-3 advantage, amassed mainly when the two teams met every year from 1920 through 1977. The last two meetings, in 2007 and 2008, went New Mexico’s way, however.
Last bowl game: This is New Mexico’s first bowl game since their 23-0 win over Nevada in the 2007 New Mexico Bowl. This is Arizona’s fourth straight bowl game. They lost to Boise State 38-30 in last season’s Fiesta Bowl.
Announcers: Eamon McAnaney and Rocky Boiman

3:30: Utah vs. Brigham Young (Las Vegas Bowl @ Las Vegas, NV; ABC): The Holy War is back ahead of schedule, and naturally these two teams are meeting in… Sin City. Hey, at least they’ll still sell the hotel rooms (and the game is sold out). As for the game, Utah would seem to have the advantage, but there’s a large “don’t want to be here” factor in play for the Utes, as they played in this game last year and also probably deserved a better bid with their record. Also, there’s a lot of bad blood in this rivalry these days, which the Utes going off to a Power 5 conference and gaining talent, money, and prestige while the traditional power in the state, BYU, languishes. I have the Utes, but only by a bit.
Confidence: 8
Previous Meetings: Despite what I said above, the Utes actually hold a 54-31-4 advantage all time (though the Cougars are 30-33-1 since 1950). The two previously met every year from 1922 through 2013.
Last bowl game: This is BYU’s tenth straight bowl game, and their first appearance in this one since they appeared in four straight from 2005 through 2009. They lost to Memphis in the Miami Beach Brawl Bowl 55-48 last year. Utah won last year’s Las Vegas Bowl 45-10 over Colorado State.
Announcers: Brent Musburger and Jesse Palmer
Fun fact: Ol’ Brent loves him some sly on-air gambling references, which I’m pretty sure could be the basis of a pretty solid drinking game. On a related note, as of this writing “our friends in arid regions” (as Rece Davis would say) have the Utes by 2.5 or 3.

5:30: Ohio vs. Appalachian State (Camellia Bowl @ Montgomery, AL; ESPN): Spoiler alert, but this is Appy State’s first ever bowl game. So, yeah, welcome to FBS guys. Wasn’t winning national titles more fun? But hey, at least they’ll get a win.
Confidence: 9
Previous Meetings: This is the first meeting between these two teams.
Last bowl game: As spoiled above, this is Appalachian State’s first ever bowl game, since this is the first “real” season of FBS play. The Bobcats had a nice little bowl streak going from 2009 through 2013, but last season they missed a bowl despite going 6-6. They lost the 2013 Beef O’Brady’s bowl to East Carolina 37-20.
Announcers: Dave Neal and Anthony Becht
Fun fact: The camellia, native to East Asia, is the state flower of Alabama. There have also been two other Camellia Bowls. The first, in 1948, pitted Hardin-Simmons against Wichita State in Lafayette, Louisiana. The Shockers lost 49-12 and the game folder after only pulling 5,000 at the game. The Camellia Bowl was then a small-school bowl in Sacramento, California (the “Camellia City”) bowl between 1961-1975 and 1980.

7:00: San Jose State vs. Georgia State (Cure Bowl @ Orlando, FL; CBSS): “Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream” she said
“The one that makes me laugh” she said
And threw her arms around my neck
“Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I’ll run away with you
I’ll run away with you”
Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow
“Why are you so far away?” she said
“Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you
That I’m in love with you”

You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You’re just like a dream

Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me

You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven
I’m going with the Panthers.
Confidence: 10
Previous Meetings: This is the first meeting between these two teams.
Last bowl game: This is the Spartans’s first bowl since the 2012 Military Bowl, where they beat Bowling Green 29-20. After going 1-23 in their first two seasons, this is Georgia State’s first ever bowl game.
Announcers: Carter Blackburn and Aaron Taylor
Fun fact: I was so hoping ESPN’s Robert Smith would be around for this, but alas, the game is on CBS Sports Network. As for what the game is trying to cure, proceeds from the game will go toward the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

9:00: Louisiana Tech vs. Arkansas State (New Orleans Bowl @ New Orleans, LA; ESPN): Louisiana Tech cruised through a lot of their C-USA schedule, but it was perphaps a sign when they lost 17-15 to UTEP, as they got thumped 58-24 by Souther Mississippi the last week of the season. Arkansas State had a pretty solid season in the Sun Belt, by which I mean they ran the table in the conference and won most of those games pretty thoroughly. I’m giving the Red Wolves a slight edge here.
Confidence: 11
Previous Meetings: 38 of ’em, if you can believe it. They met most every year from 1956 through 1998, and the Bulldogs are 26-12 all-time. They also two, with 1998’s 69-21 win being the most recent.
Last bowl game: Louisiana Tech beat Illinois in last year’s Zombie Cotton Bowl 35-18. This actually caught me a bit by surprise, but this is Arkansas State’s fifth straight bowl game. They lost to Toledo in last season’s GoDaddy Bowl, 63-44.
Announcers: Adam Amin and Kelly Stouffer

This Weekend in College Football: Week 15

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon: Northern Iowa @ North Dakota State (NCAA Division I Quaterfinal; ESPN): It’ll be 34 degrees at kickoff in Fargo, but no matter, since the Bison (pronounced: bizon) play in the FARGODOME. At any rate, these two Missouri Valley opponents met back in October and the Bison rallied then to win 31-28. What will happen here? Tune to find out, because it’ll probably be more competitive than the only other televised game today.

3:00: Army vs. Navy (@Philadelphia, PA; CBS): Army is 2-9. Their only victories on the season are over an equally awful Eastern Michigan squad and Bucknell, which went 4-6 otherwise in FCS play. Navy, meanwhile, finished 9-2 with a pretty legitimate shot to play for a conference title game. I have to think hard questions are being asked up in West Point about what it would take for the USMA to field a competitive football team again. Surely people who have paid closer attention than I have are asking: how are Navy and Air Force (who played for the Mountain West title) succeeding where Army has failed? After all, the Black Knights were in Conference USA from 1998 through 2004, and they weren’t challenging for any conference titles then. The last time Army had consecutive seasons where they finished .500 or better were 1988 though 1990. Since then, they’ve done so three times, most recently in 2010. The last time they beat Air Force was 2012, Navy, 2001. Suffice it to say, I’m not giving the Cadets much of a chance here.

Bowl Predictions 2015: Epilogue

They’re no longer predictions really, so it’s more that the full schedule is now available.

I don’t ordinarily follow up on the predictions in this fashion, but I thought it would be appropriate in this case because there’s a lot of stuff that happened.

In the playoff, I was wrong about Oklahoma and Michigan State’s positions, but reasonable people can disagree. What I don’t like, though, is 1-loss Iowa finishing ahead of 1-loss Ohio State in the final poll, sending Iowa to the Rose Bowl instead of the Buckeyes. Considering that they both lost to the same team, Ohio State’s superior statistical profile and stronger best win should have kept them above the Hawkeyes. This had a ripple effect, I figure, on the rest of the CFP field, since Ohio State will head west anyway, sending Houston to Atlanta to face Florida State.

Apparently “Frank Beamer’s Last Game” was not a very appealing factor for the ACCs bowls at all. Virginia Tech fell out of the middle tier of ACC bowls, past the Military (which, in fairness, they played in last year) to the Independence. The Independence also effected a swap with the Cure Bowl, sending Tulsa to Shreveport and allowing the Cure to create perhaps the most depressing bowl matchup of all time.

— Fred Simmons (@fsimmons) December 6, 2015

Just wait the Smiths Bowl will be even more depressing. https://t.co/XNsTXoTpfn

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) December 6, 2015

In general, I whiffed pretty badly on the ACC’s bowl lineup:

Game Prediction Actual
Russell Athletic North Carolina North Carolina
Sun Miami Miami
Pinstripe Pittsburgh Duke
Belk Virginia Tech North Carolina State
Music City Louisville Louisville
Military Duke Pittsburgh
Independence North Carolina State Virginia Tech

As I suspected from my research last night, the Texas Bowl did not get a Texas Tech-Texas A&M matchup. If you suspect that maybe TAMU and the SEC didn’t want that to happen, I’d suspect you’re right. Instead, Leonard Fournette will take aim at P.J. Daniels’s bowl rushing record of 307 yards.

And let’s close with what happened involving the Mountain West Conference. As I predicted last night, the Arizona Bowl was going to wind up matching two MWC teams because their only other option was to get a Pac-12 team, which they couldn’t afford. The conference’s commissioner was none too pleased about this. Yes, the system is broken. However, I can’t help but feel the NCAA let things get this way on purpose. A few years ago, the NCAA got out of the business of regulating bowl games other than a) controlling who can qualify and b) making sure the financials were in order. In other words, if you could afford to host a bowl game, then you can have one. To me, it seems more likely at this point that the playoffs will continue to grow, and that instead of going “back” to 30 bowl games (we’re at 40 now, not counting the national championship game) that the system will be scrapped all together. I think most of us that follow the game are in favor of an 8 or 16 team playoff. At 8 teams, bowl games start to get dicey. At 16, they would be untenable.

This is the 17th year I’ve done these predictions, and I like to think I’m reasonably good at it. For instance, last night when I was researching, I saw one sportswriter for a paper in Louisiana or some such toss off his “final” predictions. They were laughably horrible, even putting teams that had already accepted bids in the wrong games. I continue to do this because I enjoy it, and if bowl games were to go away, I’d miss this a lot. That said, I think it’s where we’re going (and where we should be going), and this year’s fiasco will probably help get us there.

Bowl Predictions 2015: Final

Okay, it’s the last predictions of the year! Get ’em right here!

Everything I said last week is mostly still applicable, so I will keep this mainly to anything that’s changed.

CFP

I’m sticking with my predicted Top Four, since there weren’t any major upsets in the conference title games. There was one major upset on the day, though: Texas defeating Baylor, which means the Big 12’s Sugar Bowl slot will go to Oklahoma State instead of the Bears. Bit of a bum rap considering the circumstances (essentially, Baylor ran out of quarterbacks), but them’s the breaks.

Power Five

I wound up doing a major reshuffling of the SEC’s bowl games, but I saw a fair bit of news from the past 24 hours that really suggested Tennessee to the Outback Bowl and Georgia to the Taxslayer Bowl, which caused a cascade through the other games. This has the effect of avoiding a Virginia Tech-Tennessee matchup in the Belk Bowl at least, since they will meet again September. However, this will likely also send LSU to the Texas Bowl, which seems to be agreeable to all parties except the Texas Bowl and Texas Tech, but again, the SEC gets to decide which bowls its teams go to after the Citrus.

Speaking of the Citrus, they could really shake things up if they decide they don’t want the punchless edition of Florida we’re currently getting, but I don’t think that’s likely.

There were some other slight changes due to the Big 12 reshuffling and any news I could glean from elsewhere, but I think these predictions are about as good as you’re going to get for the Power 5. The main remaining sticking point is where the the extra Pac-12 teams will wind up (and, indeed, which Pac-12 teams will be the extras). There’s one major problem, which I’ll get to below.

Group of Five

The other upset of the day was Georgia State defeating Georgia Southern, putting the Panthers in their first ever bowl game, the Cure Bowl.

So, About Those 5-7 Teams…

The 5-7 teams I wound up using are Nebraska, Minnesota, and San Jose State. The former two, I simply slotted into the Big Ten’s remaining bowl slots. Easy. San Jose State, not so much.

I wound up with a bunch of extra Pac-12 teams, a couple extra MAC teams, and an extra Mountain West team in the Spartans. The main issue that of the payouts. The director of the Arizona Bowl was quoted in saying that his first year bowl can’t afford the payout necessary to get a Pac-12 team. This means I couldn’t slot a Pac-12 team there. However, the extra MAC schools I had slotted into the backup bids that conference negotiated ahead of time. The result, then, is that I currently have Colorado State playing San Jose State. At least they didn’t play in the regular season. One solution is that the Arizona Bowl could trade a bowl slot with, say, a MAC-affiliated bowl, but the only MAC bowl out west that would make sense the Poinsettia Bowl, which already has a Mountain West school. This sort of thing has happened before, but a) it’s very, very tough for me to predict such swaps if no one is explicitly talking about them in the news and b) the Arizona Bowl is new and may not have the “pull” necessary to get someone to swap with them. So, even though it’s probably wrong, I’m going with that for now.