2024 Bowl Preview

Football season may be over in East Lansing, but for hard-core college football fans, the next few weeks truly are the most wonderful time of the year. Between Dec. 14 and Jan. 20, a total of 46 games will be played, including 35 traditional, non-playoff bowl games. That means that there is still data to analyze and potentially dubious bets to be placed.

In my previous Against All Odds piece, I went into some detail about how my computer expects the playoffs to shake out. In today's piece, I will primarily focus on the other 35 bowl games.

Bowl Overview

Table 1 below shows a matrix that summarizes the number of games each conference plays against all the other conferences during bowl season.

Table 1: Matrix showing total traditional bowl games and 1st round playoff games each conference plays against each of the other conferences. Cells highlight in green feature two Power Four teams. Cells highlighted in blue feature two Group of Five or Pac-12 teams and cells highlighted in blue feature a Power Four team versus a Group of Five or Pac-12 team.

Cells highlight in green represent games between two Power Four teams. Cells highlighted in blue represent games featuring two Group of Five or Pac-12 teams and cells highlighted in blue represent a Power Four team versus a Group of Five or Pac-12 team.

In total, 14 of the traditional bowls and all four first round playoff games are matchups of two Power Four teams. In 12 of the games, two Group of Five teams will square off. In the remaining nine bowls, a Power Five team meets a Group of Five team.

The ACC got the most bowl bids at 13, but only eight of those games are against other Power Four teams. The SEC got 12 bowl bids, and all but two of them are against Power Four teams. 

The Big 12 received eight total bowl bids, but two of those games are against Group of Five opponents and two Big 12 teams will face each other as Colorado will play the role of a legacy Pac-12 team when the Buffalos face BYU in the Alamo Bowl. Only three Big 12 teams will face Power Five opponent outside of the current league.

In the Big Ten, a total of 11 teams qualified for a bowl or will play in the first round of the playoffs. All 11 teams will face a Power Five opponent.

But how are the teams expected to perform? Table 2 below summarizes the predicted record for each conference based on the opening spread as well as by both my algorithm and ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI).

Table 2: Projected bowl records for each conference based on the opening Vegas spread and the forecasts from my computer and from ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI).

I have also tabulated the expected number of wins for each conference based on the opening spreads. For example, the SEC is currently favored in Vegas in 10 of the 12 games, but the expected win total is slightly lower at 7.7. 

Tennessee (+7) and Vanderbilt (+2.5) are underdogs against Ohio State in the playoffs and Georgia Tech in the Birmingham Bowl, respectively. Several other SEC teams are narrow favorites such as Arkansas (-2.5) over Texas Tech in the Liberty Bowl, LSU (-3) over Baylor in the Texas Bowl, Missouri (-2.5) over Iowa in the Music City Bowl, and Texas A&M (-2.5) over USC in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Odds are that SEC teams will drop a few of those near toss-ups. In fact, my computer is predicting three upset loses for the SEC, including Iowa and USC getting wins, as well as Tulane (+9.5) upsetting Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl. However, I also have Vanderbilt beating Georgia Tech in Birmingham, which would leave the SEC at 8-4 in this set of games. The FPI only agrees with my computer on the USC upset prediction.

The conferences are listed in Table 2 are in order of the expected bowl and first round playoff winning percentage. The Big 12 is expected by Vegas to be over .500, but my algorithm and the FPI predict a slightly worse performance. Specifically the FPI is picking Miami (+1) over Iowa State (-1) in the Pop Tarts Bowl and my algorithm likes Memphis (+1.5) over West Virginia (-1.5) in the Frisco Bowl.

Vegas also expects the ACC to end up slightly over .500. My computer foresees upset losses by California (-1.5) to UNLV in the L.A. Bowl and Georgia Tech (-2.5) to Vanderbilt while the FPI is predicting upset wins by Virginia Tech (+4.5) over Minnesota in the Duke's Mayo Bowl and Boston College (+3.5) over Nebraska in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Of the four power conferences, the Big Ten is projected to have the worst overall bowl record, but this is partially due to the fact that the Big Ten earned more playoff berths than any other league which left a weaker pool of teams to play in the traditional bowls. Big Ten teams are also playing more other Power Fours than any of the other conferences.

As mentioned above, the FPI is forecasting two upset losses to ACC teams, but my computer is more bullish on the Big Ten. It sees upset wins by Iowa and USC and no upset losses.

Table 3 below provides the detailed summary of my computer's picks for all 39 traditional bowls and first-round playoff games. The Big Ten and other playoff games are sorted to the top of the table and the remaining games are sorted from biggest to smallest spread.

Table 3: Summary of Big Ten action in the traditional bowl games and first-round playoff games, including my algorithm's projected scores. The teams shaded in green are projected to cover by my computer. The teams shaded red are projected to cover by the FPI.

In general, my computer is optimistic that the Big Ten teams will win where expected and in most cases cover the spread. That said, I do have Virginia Tech, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Alabama covering the spread against Minnesota, Washington, Indiana, and Michigan.

Bowl Season Bad Betting Advice

The section above highlighted several potential upsets and recommended picks against the spread. For one last time this season, Figure 1 below gives an overview summary of all my computer's projections for bowl season in comparison to the opening Vegas spread. The same data generated by EPSN's Football Power Index is shown in Figure 2.

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

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

Figure 1 and 2 contain the same information as shown in Table 3, but in a more visual manner. The bowl season upset picks (the games appearing to the left of the vertical red lines in both figures) are summarized below in Table 4.

Table 4: Summary of upset picks for 2024 bowl season

The computers are both feeling a bit frisky when to comes to upset picks this bowl season. My computer foresees seven upsets, while the FPI has 10 total picks. The boldest pick is my computer taking Tulane (+9.5) to beat Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl straight up. All of the other picks involving Power Four teams were mentioned in the section above.

My simulation of the week's games suggests that a total of 12.8 plus-or-minus 2.8 upsets is most likely.

The games shown above in Figures 1 and 2 which fall outside of either set of dashed diagonal lines make up the set of suggested bets against the spread. Those selections are summarized below in Table 4.

Table 4: Picks against the opening spread for bowl season. The picks are listed in order of confidence score.

There are only two picks on the board, and both come from the FPI. ESPN's computer likes Tulane (+9.5) to cover versus Florida and Miami (+1) to cover versus Iowa State in the Pops Tarts Bowl.

Finally, Table 5 below summarizes my computer's recommended point total bets for bowl season.

Table 5: Recommended total points bets (over/under) for bowl season. Note the picks labeled as "locks" are at a higher level of confidence.

There are seven total bets on the board this last time around. This includes Indiana and Notre Dame combining for more than 50.5 points in the playoffs, and Oklahoma and Navy combining for more than 44.5 points in the Armed Forces Bowl. Six of the seven picks meet the criteria as "locks."

I have also included in the table last weeks point total bet for the Army/Navy game, which turned out to be correct.

That is all the advice I have for you this season. Enjoy the bowls and Happy Holidays.

Social Media Copy

While many fans focus on only the playoffs, there are 35 other college football games to be played over the next three weeks. That means more numbers to crunch for Dr. Green and White (@paulfanson) as well as more potentially dubious suggestions. Check it out: