Coach's Bowl Locks

Sorry about the late post, but I am about to lay the most locked picks of all time on you. Well maybe in my own mind anyway. You will just have to take my word for the Arizona and Utah State picks, but I did have them before the games were played. Listed below you will find in order the games will be played, my picks for the bowl season. No point spreads will be used. My picks will be in red and my confidence number in blue. A confidence number of 1 is lowest and 35 is highest level. So here we go.

Bowl Game                    Favorite                     Underdog                    Date             Confidence No.

Idaho Potato                  Utah St                       Toledo                        12/15                  33
New Mexico                  Arizona                      Nevada                       12/15                  23
Poinsettia                       BYU                          San Diego St.             12/20                    7
Beef O'Brady's               UCF                           Ball St.                       12/21                   9
     Going with the dog here because I think the MAC is better than the Conf USA.
MAACO                        Boise St.                    Washington                12/22                  12
      Peterson over Sarkisian is the difference here.
New Orleans                  La Lafayette              East Carolina              12/22                 21
Hawaii                           Fresno St.                  SMU                           12/24                 31
Little Ceasars                West. Kentucky         Cent Mich                   12/26                   8
      Does anybody know who is coaching in this game?
Military                         San Jose St.                Bowling Green           12/27                 24
       The Spartans have been good for me all year long. So stay with them.
Holiday                          UCLA                       Baylor                         12/27                 10
Belk                                Cincinnati                 Duke                           12/27                   2
Meineke                         TexasTech                 Minnesota                  12/28                 34
Independence                 La Monroe                Ohio                           12/28                 14
           This is a home game for the Warhawks.
Russell Athletic             Virginia Tech            Rutgers                       12/28                   3
Pinstripe                         West Virgina            Syracuse                     12/29                 20
Fight Hunger                  Arizona St.               Navy                           12/29                 15
Armed Forces                 Air Force                  Rice                            12/29                 13
Buff Wild Wings           TCU                          Mich St.                      12/29                   6
Alamo                            Oregon St.                Texas                           12/29                   4
         Can anyone tell me which Longhorn team will show up for this one?
Music City                     Vandy                       NC ST.                        12/31                 28
Sun                                 USC                         Ga Tech                       12/31                 16
Chick-fil-A                     LSU                         Clemson                      12/31                 11
Liberty                           Tulsa                         Iowa St                        12/31                   5
Rose                               Stanford                    Wisconsin                   01/01                 30
Outback                         So. Carolina               Michigan                    01/01                 29
Orange                           FSU                           No. Illinois                  01/01                26
Capital One                   Georgia                      Nebraska                     01/01                18
Gator                             Miss St                       Northwestern              01/01                  1  
Sugar                             Florida                       Louisville                    01/02                27
Fiesta                            Oregon                       Kansas St                     01/03                32
Cotton                           Texas A & M              Oklahoma                    01/04                19
BBVA                           Ole Miss                     Pitt                               01/05                17
Go Daddy                     Arkansas St                 Kent St                        01/06                25
BCS NCG                     Alabama                     Notre Dame                 01/07                22

I have a lot of fun with the blog site picking winners this year and finishing the regular season at over 65% against the spread, it was a good year. I will post my results as we progress throughout the bowl season before we move on to our analysis of the recruiting season. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.

Coach

Watching the New Mexico Bowl

I don't know about everyone else but I sure do miss SEC football right about now. The bad angles and tackling in this game is very frustrating to watch. It's led to lots of offense but without a big hit or great defensive play every now and then I find it monotonous. Basically whoever has the ball last should win. Definitely looking forward to some better teams and match ups.

Auburn gets their HC

Are you kidding me, Gus Malzahn?

So let me get this straight. Gus was the man but you let him get away last year when he ran the offense he says he is going to run with the quarterbacks he recruited that can not run the offense. He was the OC that brought in Frazier, Mosely and Trotter that proved to woefully inadequate to make decisions in the kind of fast paced offense that Gus wants to implement. I do like Jonathan Wallace as an athletic dual threat QB but it will remain to be seen how effective he will be in this defense-minded conference.

My best guess is the War Eaglers just hired themselves an 8 - 4 coach and that is assuming they find someone to resurrect the defense and teach some players to tackle.

Oh yea and BTW, who the heck do they think they are to make this announcement during prime time. Auburn is on the fast track to becoming an also-ran bottom half team in the SEC. They will have a very difficult time recruiting against Saban, Richt, Miles, and Muschamp with those men playing a pro-style game not the flash in the pan boys game.

College football season is quickly coming to an end.

We are almost in full bowl game mode. Because the season is nearing the end, I want to take this opportunity to make all viewers aware of follow button on the right hand side of the screen (while viewing the desktop version). All you have to do is input your email address (don't worry, it's hidden from us) and you will receive an email every time the site is updated. The reason for pointing this out is simple; with the off-season approaching there will be less frequent updates. If you follow you won't have to check every day only to be disappointed to find nothing new. So I strongly suggest following.

Bowl Predictions

Since the regular season is basically over and I will not be posting my Locks of the Week for games, I thought I would try my hand at placing teams in some of the upcoming bowl games. First I will pick the conference championship games then the BCS matchups and the remaining SEC bowl games.

Conference Championship Games

Big Ten  --  Wisconsin getting 3 from Nebraska in an upset

ACC       --  Florida St over Ga Tech by 14

PAC 12  --  Stanford over UCLA by 8

SEC       --  Georgia getting 7 from Alabama

Conf USA --  Tulsa over UCF by 1

MAC     --  Kent St getting 6 from No. ILL

BCS Bowl Game Matchup

NCG     --  Georgia vs Notre Dame

Sugar    --  Florida vs Oklahoma

Fiesta   --   Kansas St vs Oregon  ( this was the early season NCG )

Rose     --  Wisconsin vs Stanford  ( what a dog with two running teams )

Orange --  Florida St vs Kent St  (in a rule that Kent St finishes in top 16 and Big East doesn't)

Of course if the upsets I am picking don't materialize then I reserve the right to change my picks.

SEC Bowl Games

Capital One  --  Alabama vs Northwestern  (kinda let down for Bama)

Cotton          --  TAMU vs Texas ( the Cotton really wants this one )

Outback       --  So. Carolina vs Nebraska

Chick-fil-A  --  LSU vs Clemson ( two 10 - 2 tiger teams )

Gator           --  Miss St vs Michigan (could see alot of points in this one )

Music City  --  Ole Miss vs Virginia Tech

BBVA         --  Vandy vs Pitt

Let me know what you think and where I am off base. I look forward to your comments.

Notre Dame - 22 USC - 13

Just finished watching and I have a few thoughts.

1.   Notre Dame is not the best team in the country. In fact I am not sure they are even in the top 5. I know the media loves them at the TV ratings will love them with their fan base. I will take Alabama, Georgia, Florida, or Texas A & M versus the Irish any day and all day long. The USC defense is not very good at all with almost no depth, the offense is very inconsistent but still moved the ball well on the Irish famous "D". I may be wrong but this looks like another championship game that is not that close in the end and the 7th straight for the SEC.

2.   Max Witteg is going to be a very able replacement to Matt Barkley. He showed a lot of promise as a good QB.

3.   Don't ever pick the ACC teams over any good teams from another conference. I was foolish to believe the hype about Clemson and Florida State. Even Wake Forrest got pummeled by Vandy.

4.   While "Johnny Football" probably will not win the Heisman Trophy simply because he is a freshman (the AARP voters won't allow it). He is the real deal and his stats are as impressive as both Cam Newton and Tim Tebow during the years they won the trophy. Collin Klein has a chance next week to lock it up with an impressive performance against a confused Texas Longhorn defense.

5.   Alabama vs Georgia next week should be a great battle. Both teams look like they are hitting on all cylinders.

LSU vs Arkansas

There was a good reason why I chose the Hogs plus the spread. And now you know.It would be easy to complain about the Tigers but we should not expect anything different from this team in the 12th and final regular season game especially on the road. A 20 - 13 win is good and don't forget that any win on the road in the SEC, even Arkansas, is a tough chore. So I will take'em any way I can get'em.

Here are the highlights as I saw them from my couch in the watching room for sports;

1.   Mettenberger while certainly not his best effort was relatively effective when we needed him most. 200 plus yards, no interceptions.

2.   While the defense bent, it did not break, giving up only 13 points will win most games.

3.   The return game bailed us out again and made life a little easier on the offense.

One day we will look back on this season and realize how much the Tigers accomplished in 2012. There are two first time starters at cornerbacks that are going to get better and end up pretty good, probably next year. The team as a whole is young, gaining valuable experience that will provide valuable depth next year when all of the injured return as well as the academic casualties from earlier this year. I also see alot of good things to build on for the offense as well. Receivers got better, O-line got better, QB got better and the RB were good all year long. We also found a TE that can run routes and catch the ball.

Don't hang your heads Tiger fans, we will take our bowl bid (probably Cotton) and prepare well to finish the season with 11 wins and momentum heading into off-season workouts.

It is still a great time to be a Tiger fan.