With 35 games, I'll admit that some of these picks came right out of my ass.
For a lot of Dads the upcoming Bowl Season truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Night after night, week after week, we get to enjoy the end of the college football season right through the first week of January, where we’ll be lulled back to sleep by another forced 1-2 matchup between the team that pays their “amateur” athletes a little more than the other team that also pays their players. Much like your wife’s unwanted night of drunk marathon sex, we’re plowing through all thirty-something games and picking the winners.We’re starting at the bottom; the bowl games that wouldn’t exist except for the fact that by this point in the TV programming calendar we’re all tired of watching re-runs of Strongman Competitions on ESPN Ocho.
Gildan New Mexico Bowl
Temple (-7) vs. Wyoming
Dec. 17, 2 p.m. ET (ESPN) 
Look for an empty stadium as these two teams face off in the middle of the desert for the “What? The bowl games have already started?” Bowl. Temple brings their second place MAC East finish to the table while Wyoming ended up finishing behind Boise State and TCU in the Mountain West. Wyoming did get to play one MAC school early on this year, beating lowly Bowling Green by 1. Temple sports the nation’s third best points against average and top 10 running game while Wyoming… Ah who really cares? Lay the points and expect Wyoming to lose by 10.
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Ohio (3.5) vs. Utah State
Dec. 17, 5:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)
“I once went to speak at a school, and there was a 16-year-old girl. And the girl says to me, “You know what? I don’t care what I do, I just want to be famous.”
And I thought, you know, I should really just shoot her in the head because it would serve two things: It would make her famous as the girl that Jason Alexander shot in the head, and it would, you know, spare the world of the banality of the rest of her life.
- Jason Alexander, of Seinfeld fame:
The same should be said about the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Just because you CAN have a bowl game, Idaho, doesn’t mean you SHOULD have one. I don’t like any MAC team on the road, but Ohio has a knack of keeping it close – even in a loss. Take the Bobcats and the 3.5 points and enjoy some potato vodka while you watch this one.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
San Diego State (-5.5) vs. Louisiana-Lafayette
Dec. 17, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Normally when a team from Louisiana plays football in a home game I would say to take the home team. Not because there’s a huge on-field advantage, but because the local yokels will most likely inebriate the competition on Bourbon Street the night before the game. Both teams finished the season 8-4 and there’s a hometown edge for the Ragin’ Cajuns, but San Diego State’s experience against — let’s face it — a tougher schedule will prevail. Lay the 5 1/2 points and take the Aztecs, unless of course you see a bunch of Aztecs vomiting on Bourbon Street the night before the game.
Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersberg Bowl
Florida International vs. Marshall (+4.5)
December 20, 2011 8 PM (ESPN)
When the Irish first came to America they did so with the dream of living in a society free from religious persecution, full of jobs and to have other Americans open cheesy, Irish-themed chain bars mocking their heritage. The Beef O’Brady’s Bowl, which features not one but two apostrophes in the same word, features a FIU team playing essentially a home game. While it’s hard to pick either mediocre teams, we’re going to assume they all end up hungover and bloated from visiting a Beef O’Brady’s the night before the game and sleeping in, thus making the game a 0-0 tie. Take the points given Marshall’s strength of schedule and propensity to drink a lot of moonshine in them thar hills.
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
No. 18 TCU (-11.5) vs. Louisiana Tech
Dec. 21, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN)
After the BCS played the “Screw You, Small Conference” Game this year, the Horned Frogs were left out of any meaningful game. Sorry, but if it wasn’t sponsored by a San Diego-based company I couldn’t even tell you in which part of the country this one is even being played. The Southeast? West? Alaska? The North Pole? Regardless, TCU is going to mop the floor with WAC Champion Louisiana Tech. Sure, LTU beat SEC doormats Ole Miss and Mississippi State, but saying you beat those two teams is like being valedictorian of Summer school.
Check back Monday for even more EOT Bowl predictions!
No kids, I don’t have time to read you another story. There’s another bowl game on.
I’m pretty sure this is the one time of the year it’s OK to use your dog as a babysitter.
They should just make it official and treat college football like 6 year old baseball. Everybody gets a trophy! Everybody gets a bowl game!
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