Bowl Week Preview, 2022

Michigan State Football fans may have completely shifted their focus to recruiting, basketball, or even hockey. (Yes! Hockey is back in East Lansing, folks!) But that does not mean that the college football season is over. In just a few short hours, it will be time to officially kick off the 2022-23 college football bowl season.

It may not be the "most wonderful time of the year" when the team that you root for is stuck at home. But I am guessing that many of you out there are Spartan fans first and college football fans second. So, with this in mind, I would like to continue my tradition of providing a bit of potentially dubious betting advice for the remaining games this year.

Bowl Season Picks

Every week of this season, I have provided an analysis of the full slate of college football games, including a comparison between the opening point spreads and the predictions from both my computer and ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI). Figures 1 and 2 below show these comparisons for bowl season.

Figure 1: Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on my algorithm to the opening Las Vegas lines for the 2022 bowl season.

Figure 2: Comparison of the projected final margins of victory based on ESPN's FPI to the opening Las Vegas lines for the 2022 bowl season.

For those that may be unfamiliar with my analysis, each data point in the figures above represents a single bowl game. If the data point falls above the solid diagonal line, the computer(s) predict that the favored team will cover the opening spread and vice versa.  

If a data point falls to the left of the red vertical line, this means that the computer(s) predict that the underdog will win the bowl game straight up. Table 1 below summarizes the nine total upset picks that the computers are making this bowl season out of a total of 41 games.

Table 1: Summary of upset picks for the 2022 bowl season.

My computer likes a total of seven upsets while the FPI predicts a total of four upsets. The computers agree on two of those predictions: Tennessee over Clemson in the Orange Bowl and SMU over BYU in the New Mexico Bowl.

Other notable upsets on the board include Kansas over Arkansas in the Liberty Bowl, Penn State over Utah in the Rose Bowl, Iowa over Kentucky in the Music City Bowl and Illinois over Mississippi State in the ReliaQuest Bowl (previously known as the Outback Bowl).

Note that a simulation of the 2022 bowl season suggests that a total of 14.5 plus-or-minus 2.9 upsets are most likely to occur out of the 41 total contests.

I will also note, however, that the computers have no knowledge about topics such as injuries or star players opting out, which is very likely impacting the line in the Orange Bowl (with Tennessee's star quarterback Hendon Hooker out for the year). In addition, Iowa and Illinois are both now listed as favorites on DraftKings SportsBook.

Figures 1 and 2 also contain a pair of diagonal dotted lines. If a data point falls outside of either one of these lines, then the computer's prediction deviates from the opening spread enough that my historical data suggests that a pick against the spread is warranted. Table 2 below summarizes these suggested bets for the 2022 bowl season.

Table 2: Picks against the opening spread for the 2022 bowl season. The picks are listed in order of confidence score

The computers do not have a very good track record in picks against the spread this year, so maybe it is a good thing that combined they could only come up with three total selections. That said, wagers on Memphis, Tennessee, and Western Kentucky all come recommended.

Table 3 below summarizes my set of recommended point-total (i.e. over/under) bets.

Table 3: Recommended total points (over/under) bets for the 2022 bowl season. Note that the picks labeled as "locks" are at a higher level of confidence.

These are the newest set of recommendations from my computer and they come in two levels of confidence. The full set of nine picks in Table 3 are selected based on a comparison to each game's point total as predicted by my computer. The picks using this method have a record in 2022 of 105-84 (55.6%). 

Table 3 denotes a set of three predictions that are designated as "locks." In these cases, I am also using the predictions from Bill Connelly's SP+ rankings to supplement my picks. So far in 2022, the "lock" selections have a record of 58-33 (63.7%) and have only posted a record below .500 once in 12 total weeks.

Big Ten Overview

While the Spartans are at home watching holiday movies and eating mom's home-cooked meals, a total of nine Big Ten teams are being forced to practice more and then will be compelled to travel over the holidays to exciting places like Charlotte, N.C., Tampa, Fla., and the Bronx, N.Y. I am sure that sounds like fun to some people and I am totally not saying that as a personal coping mechanism.

Table 4 below summarizes the details of the bowl games involving Big Ten teams this season listed from the game where the Big Ten team is the most heavily favored (Michigan opened at -8.5 versus TCU in the Fiesta Bowl) to the game where the Big Ten team is the biggest underdog (Ohio State opened at +7 versus Georgia in the Peach Bowl).

Table 5: Summary of the 2022 bowl season action, including my algorithm's projected scores. The teams shaded in green are projected to cover by my algorithm. The teams shaded red are projected to cover by the FPI

Over half of the Big Ten games have an opening spread of less than three points which suggests that it very likely will be an exciting bowl season. At the opening, Big Ten teams were favored in just four of the nine games. But, as mentioned above, both Iowa and Illinois are now narrowly favored. 

Also note that Minnesota (-7.5) is a healthy favorite over Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl while Purdue (+6.5) is a substantial underdog against LSU in the Citrus Bowl.

Interestingly, my computer appears to be very optimistic about the Big Ten teams' chances this bowl season. My machine predicts wins for opening underdogs Iowa, Illinois, and Penn State. My machine also projects that eight out of the nine Big Ten teams will cover the opening spread. Ohio State is the only exception.

ESPN's FPI is more pessimistic if not all-out disagreeable. The FPI projects a final bowl record for the Big Ten of just 4-5 and projects that seven of the nine Big Ten teams will fail to cover the opening spread. The FPI only has Iowa and Ohio State covering.

National Overview

Table 6 below provides a snapshot of the participation of each conference and the distribution of match-ups for the 2022 bowl season. I have colored-coded each cell to represent match-ups between two Power Five schools (in green), two Group of Five teams (in blue), and cross-over games (in yellow).

Table 6: Matrix of Bowl game participation and conference match-ups. Cells in green represent games involving two Power Five teams. Cells in blue represent games involving two Group of Five teams and cells in yellow represent a Power Five/Group of Five cross-over.

The 2022 Bowl line-up shows a healthy combination of inter-conference match-ups. All five of the Power Five conferences each play at least one bowl game against a member of each of the other four Power Five conferences. A total of 20 of the 41 games involve a pair of Power Five teams.

Both the SEC and Big Ten will only play in games against other Power Five teams. But a total of five bowl games involve a team from the ACC, Big 12, or Pac-12 playing a Group of Five team from the American Athletic Conference (AAC) or the Mountain West Conference. Of the five Group of Five teams in this set of bowls, the only favorite is Central Florida who will face Duke (+2.5) in the Military Bowl.

The remaining 16 bowl games feature pairs of Group of Five teams. There are no bowl match-ups in 2022 between the AAC and either the MAC or Conference USA. Similarly, no Mountain West team will face a team from the Sun Belt.

Finally, Table 7 below summarizes the projected performance of each conference during the 2022 bowl season based on the opening point spreads and the predictions of both my algorithm and ESPN's FPI. The records are shaded depending on whether the computer is optimistic (green) or pessimistic (yellow) about the performance of each conference compared to the point spreads.

Table 7: Predicted conference records and expected wins based on the opening Las Vegas point spreads and the predictions of my algorithm and ESPN's FPI.

If my algorithm is correct about the strength of the Big Ten, the conference has a chance to finish bowl season with a 7-2 record which would likely be the best overall winning percentage of any conference. However, the FPI and the opening point spreads suggest that a record closure to .500 is more likely. The number of expected bowl wins for the Big Ten is just 4.5 out of nine total games (50%).

Both Las Vegas and the FPI predict a good bowl season for the Pac-12. The teams from the West Coast are only predicted to lose one or two of their seven bowls. Furthermore, the expected win total of 4.2 in just seven games is the highest expected win percentage of all 10 conferences (60%).

The SEC is projected to have a strong bowl season by Las Vegas and the FPI with an expected win percentage of 53%. However, my computer is more pessimistic and projects that SEC teams might struggle to get to .500.  Both the Big 12 and the ACC are expected to lose more bowl games than they will win this season.

As for the Group of Five teams, both the Sun Belt and AAC are generally predicted to have a winning record during bowl season. The FPI is more confident in the AAC than the Sun Belt. The MAC, Mountain West, and Independents are all likely to finish bowl season at or near .500. Conference USA appears poised to bring up the rear when it comes to bowl performance as a conference.

A full list of the 2022 Bowl Season match-ups, including the predicted final scores from my algorithm can be found here and here.

Enjoy the games.