Bowl Season

I love a lot of sports, like MLB, NFL, NHL, pro football, college football and basketball, and golf and racing on occasion. I also enjoy the Olympics. But when it comes to my one favorite sport, it's college football, even with more boring seasons like this one (but I was still overly excited to see BYU beat Oklahoma this year...too bad OU was actually a very mediocre team). With bowl season on the way, I will be making my picks on the games as they get closer.

This week, I'll start with three games that will happen this weekend. So here.we.go...

New Mexico Bowl
Fresno St. (WAC) v Wyoming (Mountain West)
Dec 19, 3:30 pm CST

In the rooting pecking order in college football, I pull for 1) BYU, 2) Tennessee, 3) The Mountain West Conference. As the Mountain West tries to gain respectability in the BCS system, little games like this go a long way. Sadly, we're talking about Wyoming here. The same Wyoming that barely beat Weber State (not an FBS school), barely beat Sun Belt doormat Florida Atlantic and was pounded by TCU, BYU and lowly Colorado. Meanwhile, Fresno State had a respectable year, losing only to Nevada, #6 Boise State, #3 Cincinnati (by 8) and #25 Wisconsin (in OT). Given the opponent, does Fresno State forget to show up to this game? I don't think so.

Fresno St. - 42
Wyoming - 17


St. Petersburg Bowl
UCF (Conference USA) v Rutgers (Big East)
Dec 19, 7 pm CST

I've gotta be honest here...I've hardly watched any action of either team this year. In fact, I haven't watch so much as a highlight of UCF football. I did watch Rutgers take South Florida to school earlier in the year and was impressed. UCF did beat Houston, and their only losses came to Southern Miss, #2 Texas, East Carolina and #15 Miami (all bowlers this year). As for Rutgers...they lost to #3 Cincy, #17 Pitt, #16 West Virginia (respectable for all 3) and then what? Syracuse? Yuk! This looks like one of those games you wouldn't dare lay money on (luckily, I'm not a gambling man). Still, this will not be one of my more confident bowl picks this season. Should make for an interesting game, though (and isn't that why we have bowl season?)

UCF 24
Rutgers 28


New Orleans Bowl
Southern Miss (C-USA) v Middle Tennesse St (Sun Belt)
Dec 20, 7:30 pm CST

Secretly hidden in my rooting order is MTSU, where I got my first two years of post-secondary education. The last time MTSU had this good of a year was 2001, when Wes Counts was QB for the Blue Raiders. They beat Vanderbilt that year for the first time (and continued to do so until Vandy had enough and went to the FCS to find their cupcakes). They also gave Ole Miss a run for their money and swept through the Sun Belt except for one game...North Texas, who got to go to the inaugural New Orleans bowl with a 5-6 record. I still get irked over that to this day. While MTSU has yet to go to a bowl as the Sun Belt's conference champ, they do get to come here in their 2nd bowl appearance since joining the FBS. As for Southern Miss, they've looked pretty pedestrian this year, losing to Kansas, Houston, UAB, Louisville (yikes) and East Carolina. MTSU's losses came to Clemson, Troy and Mississippi State. I'm going for the upset special and say that the Blue Raiders win in a close game for their first bowl win (hey, crazier things have happened).

Southern Miss 21
MTSU 24


Record 0-0