Welcome to the Funvee Tailgate! It’s time for the holiday season rush. Frantic shoppers flood retailers, food lovers eat their body weight in cookies, and college football teams move to exotic locales for their final showdown of the season. That’s right, it’s time to go bowling! Once again, we here at the THUNDERBLOG will be hosting our bowlmania group on ESPN and it shouldn’t be a surprise who is in first place amongst the Thundercrew:
G-Man: 7-1
Matty D: 6-2
J-Rod: 6-2
I am the King of Pick’em but a long way to go for this bowl season. Let’s continue on…

Bowl Season Continues!

WEDNESDAY–Poinsettia Bowl: BYU (8-4, 10.0 favorite) vs. Wyoming (8-5)–9:00pm on ESPN
An interesting, interesting matchup in this one. I actually had Wyoming in my initial pick because of their high-flying offense. Taking a deeper look at BYU shows their four loss came by a grand total of eight points, all to Power Five teams. BYU wins and covers.

THURSDAY–Idaho Potato Bowl: Idaho (8-4, 14.5 underdog) vs. Colorado State (7-5)–7:00pm on ESPN
Colorado State had some nice wins this season and plays on the smurf turf every other year in conference play, including this year. The Rams lost 28-23 towards the beginning of the year and have continually improved. Idaho plays in the Sun Belt, which never helps out in a non-conference line. CSU wins but doesn’t cover.

FRIDAY–Bahamas Bowl: Eastern Michigan (7-5, 4.0 underdog) vs. Old Dominion (9-3)–1:00pm on ESPN
How lucky are these guys? Going to to the Bahamas for a bowl game? And it’s not like some of the other bowls that are played in the same site as a bigger bowl (ie. New Orleans Bowl and Sugar Bowl), NO ONE else gets to go to the Bahamas! Oh, and Old Dominion is very, very good they’ll cover. ODU wins and covers.

Armed Forces Bowl: Louisiana Tech (8-5, 6.5 favorite) vs. #25 Navy (9-4)–4:30pm on ESPN
Navy runs the triple option which can cause a lot of trouble but Louisiana Tech can SLING it! There is a reason the over/under is set at 67.5. What makes the difference for me is LT’s QB Ryan Higgins (4208 passing yards and 38 passing TDs) and his connection with WR Trent Taylor (1570 yards and 10 TDs). LT wins and covers.

Dollar General Bowl: Ohio (8-5, 4.0 underdog) vs. Troy (9-3)–8:00pm on ESPN
Ohio is the MAC runner-up which mainly because of the weak division they played in this season. Troy had a solid season and can balance the pass and running game pretty consistently, which should carry them. Troy wins and covers.

SATURDAY: Hawai’i Bowl: Hawai’i (6-7, no line) vs. Middle Tennessee (8-4)–8:00pm on ESPN
Hawai’i finished under .500 but won six games (they get an extra home game to cover travel costs) so they get another home game while a clearly better Middle Tennessee team gets a trip to Hawai’i. Middle Tennessee wins.

As per usual, the bowls take this Sunday off as they normally do for the NFL. Interestingly enough, because Sunday is Christmas Day, the NFL is playing most of its action on Saturday. This includes a Saturday night showdown which probably explains why there is only one bowl game Saturday and three on Friday, but still interesting that they’d put a game against an NFL game at all. Regardless, I’ll continue to put up polls for your picks and I’ll post next week’s preview on Monday morning.