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Fearless Rick's College Football Bowl Game Picks Texas-USC Rose Bowl Highlights Heady Bowl Slate Rick Gagliano | 12/14/05
Games of 12/20-22 | 12/23-29 | 12/30-31 | 1/2/06 | BCS Bowls 1/2-4/06
New Orleans Bowl
The Indians of Arkansas State finished with a 6-5 record and a 5-2 tally in a three-way tie for first place in the Sun Belt, which doesn't normally produce many bowl-quality teams. The best things which can be said about the Indians are along the lines of "they scored 17 points in their loss to Missouri," or, "they only lost to Oklahoma State by 10." While they have problems getting everything to work properly on offense, their defense more than makes up for it by allowing 35 TDs and an average of 373 yards per game. And those yards are piled up by mostly-inferior teams.
Heavily favored Southern Mississippi was ranked for a while in the various Top 25 polls, before falling out of contention in Conference USA with back-to-back losses to Memphis and Houston. The Golden Eagles finished with a conference record of 5-3 and a 6-5 mark overall, including losses to Alabama, Tulsa and North Carolina State.
Their best win was probably a 52-31 win over UCF, who eventually won the eastern division but lost to Tulsa in the C-USA Championship.
If this is how we're going to open up the bowl season, let's make sure it's a huge win for the favorite, so we can spend a Tuesday night checking out girls at the bar instead of having to hang on what should be a dull game. Come on Arkansas State, you can fold early!
PREDICTION: Golden Eagles 55 Indians 14
GMAC Bowl
Both of these teams finished second in the Western divisions of their respective conferences - UTEP in Conference USA and Toledo in the Mid-American. Both finished with 8-3 records overall, but Toledo was 6-2 in conference, while UTEP went 5-3. Interestingly, the Vegas guys made Toledo the favorite here even though UTEP was at times ranked in the AP Top 25. That was back in early November, before the Miners - who were 8-1 - lost two straight games to conference rivals SMU and UAB, which added up to O-U-T of the Top 25 and the conference championship game. UTEP still holds claim to having beat Tulsa, a pretty good team, and wins over both New Mexico and NM State. They can really toss it around, relying on the arm of QB Jordan Palmer for much of the offense.
The Toledo Rockets began the season with an offensive explosion, scoring 62, 56 and 42 in their first three games, all wins. Since those games, however, they've tallied over 40 only once, in a 44-41 shootout win with Bowling Green, and losses to Fresno State and Northern Illinois were lopsided. Considering the high O/U set for this game, one would expect that both teams are going to score at will, but the UTEP defense is going to get some of their swagger back and hold down the Rockets, probably to less than 4 TDs, which will provide more than an ample margin.
PREDICTION: Miners 38 Rockets 24
We're still searching for a ranked team, even though both of these squads are recognizable names, they recorded indecent records during the regular season. Cal finished a fading 4th in the defense-challenged PAC-10, behind USC, Oregon and UCLA, tied with Arizona State and Stanford with 4-4 conference records.
BYU finished a distant second to TCU with a 5-3 mark in conference and a 6-5 record overall. Both BYU and Cal played ranked teams, though only Cal came close, losing by 7 each to UCLA and Oregon, both games on the road. The Bears also took a beating by a 35-10 tally against USC.
The Cougars opened the season with a 20-3 home loss to Boston College and later in the year took it on the chin at Notre Dame, 49-23, so it can be safely said that Cal fared better against quality competition.
I don't understand the either the short game line or high O/U line at all, as Cal should be able to smother BYU effectively. If that's the case, and Cal gets a loose lead, it could be blowout city and a win by more than a mere touchdown.
I'm looking for some angry Bears to take out a season's worth of frustration on some very vulnerable Cougars, despite the presence of a large BYU contingent in Vegas.
PREDICTION: Bears 38 Cougars 21
Poinsettia Bowl
They must have run out of good names for this bowl game, settling on the red flower of the season, so this at least should be a colorful contest. Anybody who saw the Army-Navy game or the Navy loss to Notre Dame has to love the Middies in this contest. Navy led the nation in rushing yards per game at 305 this season, and many of those yards came against decent competition, like Maryland, Stanford, Rutgers and the aforementioned Irish.
It doesn't matter how well your defense stops the run (and Colorado State was among the worst, allowing over 200 yards per game on the ground), the option offense of the Navy Midshipmen is nearly impossible to stop for an entire game. Sooner or later, one of their backs is going to bust a big one. Either that or they'll simply grind you into despair.
Anybody who thinks the 6-5 Rams can win this game obviously haven't seen the Navy offense in action. Colorado State's biggest win on the season was either against Utah or UNLV and how did they do against ranked opposition? On November 5, the Rams played at TCU and lost 33-6.
I see this game as a very timely Christmas present.
PREDICTION: Midshipmen 35 Rams 24
More bowl predictions later this week... Stay tuned.
Check back here tomorrow and I'll have some tidbits for you to chew on for the first week of bowl games.
Here's my last three weeks worth of college picks. Really, how many professional handicappers would have the cajones to print an 0-3 week? Just one. Me. Fearless Rick. Hey, stuff happens.
Fearless Rick's Top 3 College Picks Week 14
Connecticut +15 WINNER
Fearless Rick's Top 3 College Picks - Week 13
Notre Dame -15 LOSER
Fearless Rick's Top 3 College Picks - Week 12
Ohio State -3 WINNER
DISCLAIMER: Fearless Rick's College Football Picks offers pre-game analysis on select college football games during the regular and post season. While Las Vegas lines are presented in parentheses, they are for reference purposes only, indicating the relative strengths and weaknesses of teams and the predicted total score.
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