===================================== Early Games (11)
Gildan New Mexico Bowl
Albuquerque, N.M. - 2 p.m. ET, Dec. 21
Washington State vs. Colorado State
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Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl
Las Vegas, Nev. - 3:30 p.m. ET, Dec. 21
Fresno State vs. USC
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Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Boise, Idaho - 5:30 p.m. ET, Dec. 21
San Diego State vs. Buffalo
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New Orleans Bowl
New Orleans, La. - 9 p.m. ET, Dec. 21
Tulane vs. La.-Lafayette
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Beef O'Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl
St. Petersburg, Fla. - 2 p.m. ET, Dec. 23
Ohio vs. East Carolina
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Hawaii Bowl
Honolulu, Hawaii - 8 p.m. ET, Dec. 24
Oregon State vs. Boise State
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Little Caesars Pizza Bowl
Detroit, Mich. - 6 p.m. ET, Dec. 26
Pittsburgh vs. Bowling Green
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Poinsettia Bowl
San Diego, Calif. - 9:30 p.m. ET, Dec. 26
Northern Illinois vs. Utah State
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Military Bowl
Annapolis, Md. - 2:30 p.m. ET, Dec. 27
Maryland vs. Marshall
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Texas Bowl
Houston, Texas - 6 p.m. ET, Dec. 27
Syracuse vs. Minnesota
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Fight Hunger Bowl
San Francisco, Calif. - 9:30 p.m. ET, Dec. 27
Washington vs. BYU
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It may assist your decision-making to see the Sagarin rankings on the teams. These are simply the ranking position numbers (1 is FSU for instance) and the smaller number is the higher ranking.
===================================== Early Games (11)
Gildan New Mexico Bowl
Washington State vs. Colorado State 31 vs 85
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Royal Purple Las Vegas
Fresno State vs. USC 52 vs 20
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Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
San Diego State vs. Buffalo 96 vs 67
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New Orleans Bowl
Tulane vs. La.-Lafayette 83 vs 89
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Beef O'Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl
Ohio vs. East Carolina 115 vs 56
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Hawaii Bowl
Oregon State vs. Boise State 37 vs 43
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Little Caesars Pizza Bowl
Pittsburgh vs. Bowling Green 59 vs 27
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Poinsettia Bowl
Northern Illinois vs. Utah State 47 vs 46
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Military Bowl
Maryland vs. Marshall 71 vs 63
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Texas Bowl
Syracuse vs. Minnesota 68 vs 51
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Fight Hunger Bowl
Washington vs. BYU 12 vs 30
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You can see that the highest ranked of the group is Washington at 12 and the lowest is Ohio at 115.
I had a hard time with this one. Most of the teams in this poll I haven’t even seen play, but I went with USC, Buffalo, and Utah State. I found myself sitting there staring at the standings on ESPN.com and wondering “Does 6-4 in the Mountain West Conference mean more or less than 6-4 in the Mid American Conference?”. I realized that I have no idea.
You’re so right. There’s precious little drama in these early bowls and I can’t imagine I’ll try to watch any of them for any length of time. Maybe the last quarter if the scores are close.
But I figured this would be one way to inject a little excitement into those early days. And who knows? There may even be some good football in there somewhere.
I’m still studying my guesses and it’s not easy to figure anything about them. I’m like you in that I can’t remember seeing any of these teams play. Sagarin’s really all I have to go by.
Maybe after a few days of no football at all, something about this group will become exciting, even if we have to manufacture it.
My philosophy has always been, bet heavily against any team that’s pissed off about being in the bowl game it’s been assigned to, especially when it’s playing a team that’s genuinely happy to be there.
That is, if Big State U. was 8-0 and hoping for a shot at the national title a few weeks back, but stumbled down the stretch, ended up 10-2, and went to the Capiutol One Bowl… bet against them. The teams thinking, “We should be in a MUCH better bowl game than this” tend to get stomped by lesser teams.
That’s one reason I figure Utah State will crush Northern Illinois. The North Illinois boys wanted to be in a BCS bowl, not the lousy Poinsettia Bowl.
So true. I have a tendency to ignore bowl games until about halfway through the slate of games. I do use sites like FBS College Football Scores to monitor the progress of games while I’m “busy” with something else, and if the scores look like it may be worth turning on the TV and enduring the inevitable barrage of commercials and nonsensical blather from “just doin’ it for the money” commentators, I will go ahead and accept the risk.
In years past there have been some real jewels in these early games.
Maybe instead of just picking the losers we could take a stab at predicting which (if any) games may be worth watching all the way through – from the opening kickoff.
These early bowls seem to have a number of teams where the coach was fired, leaving the team pretty non-committal about playing in a bowl. Take the USC-Fresno St. game. You have USC with a dumpster fire of a coaching situation (interim coaches, new coaches, outgoing coaches, all hanging out hating each other), versus one of the better college QBs of the year who didn’t get invited to New York City for the Heisman ceremony. Carr has something to prove, and USC is bitching about the assigned seats on the bus ride from the hotel.
RESULT
Colorado State 48, Washington State 45 GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL
No. 25 USC 45, No. 20 Fresno State 20 ROYAL PURPLE LAS VEGAS BOWL
San Diego State 49, Buffalo 24 FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL
Louisiana-Lafayette 24, Tulane 21 R+L CARRIERS NEW ORLEANS BOWL
East Carolina 37, Ohio 20 BEEF 'O' BRADY'S BOWL ST. PETERSBURG
Oregon State 38, Boise State 23 SHERATON HAWAI'I BOWL
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RESULT (Pre-Christmas)
Colorado State 48, Washington State 45 GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL
No. 25 USC 45, No. 20 Fresno State 20 ROYAL PURPLE LAS VEGAS BOWL
San Diego State 49, Buffalo 24 FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL
Louisiana-Lafayette 24, Tulane 21 R+L CARRIERS NEW ORLEANS BOWL
East Carolina 37, Ohio 20 BEEF 'O' BRADY'S BOWL ST. PETERSBURG
Oregon State 38, Boise State 23 SHERATON HAWAI'I BOWL
RESULT (Post-Christmas)
Pittsburgh 30, Bowling Green 27 LITTLE CAESARS BOWL
Utah State 21, No. 23 Northern Illinois 14 SAN DIEGO COUNTY CREDIT UNION POINSETTIA BOWL
Marshall 31, Maryland 20 MILITARY BOWL - PRES. BY NORTHROP GRUMMAN
Syracuse 21, Minnesota 17 TEXAS BOWL
Washington 31, Brigham Young 16 FIGHT HUNGER BOWL
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