The Last Bowl Picks for the Season

Here is the third and final set of my picks. I finished the last round with a 13-12 record and 231 of the total 412 confidence points I had placed on the games. These picks cover games played from January 2 through January 7.

January 2

International Bowl: South Florida 27 – 3 Northern Illinois (14-12, 28 points won, 259/440 total points)

The MAC continues its anti-dominance of the bowl season. Fortunately for me, I didn’t pick Northern Illinois to win this game.

Cotton Bowl: Mississippi 21 – 7 Oklahoma State (15-12, 18 points won, 277/458 total points)

Neither team looked great, but they did it together; then, when it mattered most, Oklahoma State took bad to a new level. Sure, one of the interceptions never should have happened (if only one of the officials had noted that the Mississippi defensive lineman was offside), but Oklahoma State did so much more to cost themselves the game.

PapaJohns.com Bowl: South Carolina 7 – 20 Connecticut (15-13, 15 points lost, 277/473 total points)

South Carolina continue the less-than-stellar showing for the SEC during this bowl season.

Liberty Bowl: Arkansas 20 – 17 East Carolina (16-13, 30 points won, 307/503 total points)

In a game that no one wanted to win, Arkansas finally scored more points.

Alamo Bowl: Texas Tech 41 – 31 Michigan State (17-13, 31 points won, 338/534 total points)

An undermanned MSU team put up a great fight against a Texas Tech team (that may be better off) without Mike Leach, but the Spartans came up just short. On an unrelated note, I’m guaranteed at least a .500 record. Yay!

January 4

Fiesta Bowl: TCU 10 – 17 Boise State (18-13, 3 points won, 341/537 total points)

I don’t suspect many people thought that the dominant defense would be wearing blue, orange, and white. Is there a better coach than Chris Petersen at figuring out ways to win ball games?

January 5

Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech 14 – 24 Iowa (18-14, 12 points lost, 341/549 total points)

The triple option worked much better for Navy than it did for its former coach.

January 6

GMAC Bowl: Central Michigan 44 – 41 Troy (19-14, 34 points won, 375/583 total points)

CMU left it very late, but pulled out the victory. I appreciate it, as I attached the largest number of confidence points possible to this game. Troy showed up to play; it’s a shame that they were victimized by a blocked field goal in overtime for the second bowl in a row.

January 7

BCS Championship Game: Alabama 37 – 21 Texas (20-14, 1 point won, 376/584 total points)

That was an incredibly stressful game. Alabama brought home national championship #13. Nick Saban actually smiled after the game. It’s too bad that Colt McCoy was injured; he deserved to have a better ending to his career at Texas. Granted, I didn’t want him to go out with a win, but I definitely didn’t want to see him get injured.

That, my friends, is it. It’s my best showing in bowl picks in a long time. The fact that the bowl season ended with a national championship is particularly pleasant. Roll Tide, people. Roll Tide.