Capital One Orange Bowl – #10 Miami vs. #6 Wisconsin
Line: Wisconsin -6.5
McElroy: Wisconsin (33)
Galloway: Wisconsin (22)
Palmer: Wisconsin (30)
Chizik: Miami (6)
Vilma: Miami (17)
My Pick: Wisconsin (36)
Result: Wisconsin wins 34-24
Miami started off the year hot, going undefeated through their first ten games. With three games to go, the Hurricanes lost all of their momentum with a 14-24 loss to Pittsburgh, and ended up losing their remaining two games by a total 45 points. My preview pointed out that Wisconsin was probably better than a lot of people thought, and that appeared to be the case in the Orange Bowl. Too bad I never saw that Hurricane game speed on tape that Chizik and Vilma were hyping up!
College Football Playoff at the Allstate Sugar Bowl
Line: Alabama -2
McElroy: Clemson (2)
Galloway: Clemson (14)
Palmer: Clemson (18)
Chizik: Alabama (3)
Vilma: Clemson (24)
My Pick: Alabama (14)
Result: Alabama wins 24-6
As you probably know by now, I like stats and what they can tell us about matchups. However, there are certain games where the stats are so close that I do think you have to go on instinct, and this was one of them. It took a last-minute miracle drive led by college football’s best player, Deshaun Watson, last year in order for Clemson to knock off Alabama and win the National Championship, and I think a lot of people forgot about that.
Four of the five experts listed here picked Clemson, along with 34 of 62 people in my work pool, which was mind boggling. This is the Saban-led Crimson Tide we are talking about, going for their fifth National Championship in the past nine years after losing a heartbreaker last season. They came back with a vengeance and didn’t allow Clemson to move the ball, outside of a couple drives ending in field goals.
Not only did Alabama win their first playoff game, they also pulled off a dramatic second half comeback in the National Championship game to claim the title. A recap of that game itself could be a post all on its own, as the Crimson Tide essentially played the second half with five-star recruits that they had been hiding the entire season. Think about how scary that is – Alabama’s backups dug the team out of a pretty significant hole to win a National Championship.
Bowl Mania Results
Greg McElroy: 503. He scored 483 points, leaving out the National Championship when giving his picks on TV with the matchup unknown ahead of time. Assuming he put 1 point on that game because he originally thought the matchup would be Clemson vs. Oklahoma, I will bump up the rest of his correct picks by one point and give him a total of 503.
Joey Galloway: 482. Galloway got all of his picks with 35-41 confidence points correct, but missed all of the from 28-34 with the exception of Temple for 32 points.
Jesse Palmer: 571 (96th percentile overall). Palmer’s picks were looking like they could contend on the overall leaderboard until New Year’s Day happened, when he made incorrect picks for 18, 19, 22, 37, and 41 points.
Me: 576 (97th percentile overall). Watching a grand total of two regular season college football games in 2017, I managed to outscore these three ESPN experts.
Again, this is not meant to prove to anyone that I am a genius at picking bowl games, because three percent of the population still finished better than me (and it’s a silly thing to be good at in the first place…). This is just meant to point out that statistical research and analyzing trends can tell us more about how a game will play out than studying tape or basing picks on the abilities of specific players. Bowl Mania is one of my favorite fantasy games because of the strategy and unpredictable nature of college football, and I would highly recommend submitting some picks next year if you found this article remotely interesting!
