Another bowl season is in the books, and I have to say it did not disappoint. Dramatic end-of-game heroics by Purdue and South Florida, a 107-point shootout between Wake Forest and Texas A&M, the two-overtime classic at the Rose Bowl, and the improbable Alabama comeback in the National Championship were just a few highlights that brought a strong end to the 2017 NCAA football season.
If you happened to read my bowl game preview post, you’ll know that I was really interested to see how a handful of these games would play out. The point of my preview was not to talk myself up and prove that I’m the smartest person in the world when it comes to picking college football games, because I’m absolutely not. My goal was to show that, with just a little extra research, any fan of college football can make an educated set of picks to compete against television experts that follow the sport for a living.
I was able to find complete pick sets for Greg McElroy, Joey Galloway, and Jesse Palmer, along with a few picks from Gene Chizik and Jonathan Vilma from ESPN’s Bowl Mania television special. I also have picks from a group of about 60 people from my work who are college football fans that I won’t analyze too deeply, but may reference periodically. Here are my initial predictions and the results so we can see how I fared against ESPN’s finest. For a more complete breakdown of how scoring works in ESPN’s Bowl Mania game, check out my previous post.
Las Vegas Bowl – #25 Boise State vs. Oregon
Line: Oregon -5
McElroy: Oregon (30 confidence points)
Galloway: Oregon (20)
Palmer: Boise State (17)
Chizik: Boise State (7)
Vilma: Oregon (22)
My Pick: Boise State (2)
Result: Boise State wins 38-28
Boise State was in control of this game from the beginning, although it was slightly lower scoring than many expected. If you would have bet on Boise State to win this game straight up at +230 odds, you would have netted $23 on a $10 bet.
GILDAN New Mexico Bowl – Marshall vs. Colorado State
Line: Colorado State -5.5
McElroy: Colorado State (28)
Galloway: Colorado State (25)
Palmer: Colorado State (3)
My Pick: Marshall (1)
Result: Marshall wins 31-28
Picking this game was always much closer than ESPN’s experts made it seem, and Colorado State’s lack of recent bowl success showed once again when they failed to win as a clear favorite. A $10 bet on Marshall would have netted $17 on this game, and parlaying Boise State and Marshall at $10 would have returned over $79 with both winning. Only 10 people out of 62 in my work pool picked Marshall, so this was a huge win for those who took the Thundering Herd.
