2012-13 college football bowl picks & predictions

hey, kids, what time is it? well, buffalo bob, it’s college football’s bowl madness time. yes siree, kids, it’s that time of year when the season is over and 140 or so FBS schools get to go bowling. holiday bowling. money money money bowling. along with at least an extra 21 days of practice the left outs don’t get. those 21 days are big time when next season rolls around. probably just as big as the money handed out to the conferences involved. the coaches love the 21 days more than the money. well, maybe.

at any rate, we get to sit through this holiday season and the next with the BCS thingy. that flawed mess that seemingly worked out ok this year. though someone always gets hosed by the tedious computers and/or arcane bowling rules and regulations. by this time in 2014 the BCS will be history and we’ll have our first playoffs. though i’m still not convinced that it’s going to work. i guess we’ll just have to wait and see. that old wheeze, be careful what you wish for, keeps popping up in the back of my mind. plus, i was never really sure if i wanted them in the first place. at any rate, we are going to be saddled with the ‘new and so called improved system’ for 14 years, people. 14 years is a long ass time to be saddled with anything. especially if the humps involved screw it up in some form or another. that, kids, you can take to the bank. they’re gonna screw it up. when has anything the suits ever came up with worked liked they said it would? exactly. yes, they have some guy that ran the college basketball big dance for a number of years. is he up for it? then there’s the fact, four teams might not be enough, however, anymore begins to dilute the regular season. i could go on and on with other points but i would just be repeating myself ad nauseum. if you’re really interested you can find those other bowl rants in my archives. they’re all still relevant as far as i’m concerned.

i’ll just be picking the bowls i have some sort of interest in watching, for whatever reason or reasons. straight up picks. no points or spreads to worry about. the only thing you as a fan have to worry about is if your starting qb or half of the defensive line get picked up by the cops for whatever sort of criminal violation or activity. yeah, it’s that time of year when college football players seem to get dumber than they normally are. too much time on their hands even with the extra practices. unlike the coaches, the kids are fed up with practicing by this point in the year. so they rape, rob, and pillage while drunk and or stoned just for something to do. ‘hey, let’s steal the computer nerds car and go across town and break into the dorms at all woman’s state.’ ‘great idea. pass me the bong and jd red first. i’m not wasted enough.’ i can relate to the not wasted enough deal but that’s a major veer and another story all together. but i think you get the picture.

as always, this is for entertainment purposes only. you should never take anything here as any sort of wagering advice. doing so would be asinine and make you much crazier than you really are.

one last word of warning. sitting through all of the bowl games on a couch in front of your TV will cause even more brain damage to your already addled state. just pick a handful of games you may find interesting or use my handy BCS bowling guide listed below and save yourself the loss of much needed sanity and some more brain cells.

rock ‘n’ roll.

12/22 maaco. boise st & washington. my first pick as we’re out of town and on the high seas until this date. no, we haven’t joined the navy. so, there’s no point in pointing out any of the earlier games as i can’t watch them and just looking at the list gives me the dry heaves. though the poinsettia on the 20th is of some interest with san diego st and byu. too bad i’ll miss it. ok. boise st gets this vegas bowl just about every year since byu decided sin city wasn’t for them anymore. that’s fine with the boise faithful even though they lust after greener bowling pastures. maybe one day broncos. easy one here. boise st should hammer the huskies in any sane man’s world. take boise st.

12/24 hawaii. fresno st & smu. a nice way to spend christmas eve. a quiet pre-christmas meal sans the relatives, if you’re lucky. some drinks and TV football. june jones gets to go back to hawaii the scene of his earlier coaching accomplishments. a nice gesture by the bowling boys there if there ever was one. if the fresno st guys don’t lose focus, an easy thing to do in honolulu with all the oiled up and barely dressed japanese lady tourists, they should ruin coach jones homecoming. take fresno st.

12/27 holiday. ucla & baylor. the bruins get to travel 160 miles or so south to san diego for this game after losing two in a row to the trees. yippy. i hope they will plan on playing and not partying and scaring the local female talent into hiding. if they come to play they win. maybe. coach mora is for real though. then there’s the fact baylor went on a roll their last 3 or 4 games and shut down some pretty good teams. one to watch. home boy says, take the bruins.

12/29 alamo. oregon st & texas. nice match-up here, kids. i’m assuming the game is in san antonio and not some alamo rental car parking lot out in the middle of nowhere. though that actually might be a fun thing if it were. a possible score fest if both teams are into it. one of those, let’s see if we can blow up the scoreboard type deals. fun stuff if it happens. i have to take the beavs but the longhorns could very well win. your choice. on a side note, coach riley would probably rather be in california where he could score as many ‘in-n-out’ animal style double doubles as he wants. hey, that’s what a hamburger is all about. in-n-out. yes, a crass cheap form of commercialism from yours truly. it’s that time of year, college football bowling season!! woohoo! the bowls do it so i may as well go for it. take 1. a couple of in-n-out animal style double doubles pair well with absolut vodka on the rocks. try them both today. cut. i’ll work fairly cheap and you can get in touch with me here. two of the best companies on the planet, in-n-out burgers and absolut vodka. thanks in advance guys. in case you missed it, i’m taking the beavs.

12/31 sun. georgia tech & usc. i had to look up the sun bowl as i’d completely forgotten where it was played. el paso, tx. that ought to make the local chamber of commerce guys cringe. if coach kiffin can get the boys up for this one i’ll be very surprised. i’ll also be surprised if half the squad isn’t in jail by game time. dad kiffin says he’s gone after this game. was he fired or was the high road taken? more importantly, how in the hell was he worth $1.5 mil a year? maybe they both should quit. happy new year’s eve. a toss up. this pick is up to you. the brown eyed girl and i are going out to dinner at a very nice steakhouse. i’ll miss the game. shucks.

1/4 cotton. texas a&m & oklahoma. i’ll tune into this game for several reasons. first, it’s, johnny football’s last chance, for the next 9 months, to wow the locals and TV couch potatoes far and wide with his amazing football magic. if he doesn’t go pro maybe penn & teller can use him in their act. secondly, the sooners missed a BCS bowl. they probably aren’t happy. good match-up and good TV fare. this could be another scoreboard blow out. two words, johnny football. take the aggies to win.

ok. time for the big ones.

1/1 rose. wisconsin & stanford. the grand daddy of them all. with maybe a chance at the B-2 doing a fly-over of the house here. slim but you never know. it did happen one year but at the time i was living closer to pasadena. pasadena got lucky this year. three years in a row for the badger faithful and a date out in probably sunny socal. i always hope for a deluge on jan 1. i never get my wish. the badger faithful know their way around old town by now. the trees faithful on the other hand may or may not show up. it just depends on a lot of stuff. i will actually watch this game. maybe even all of it. with wisconsin having thrown a big hurt on the huskers this could get interesting. i’m thinking possibly a low scoring snooze fest. as a life long PAC (8)(10)12 homer the trees are my pick.

1/1 orange. florida st & northern illinois. with all the transplanted new yorkers, nyc snowbirds, and mob capos in florida this would have been a perfect game for rutgers had they beaten louisville. they didn’t. and guess what? n. illinois is here instead of them. louisville got a better offer. take florida st.

1/2 sugar. florida & louisville. bourbon st beat. um, look it up. if the kids don’t get crazed and or tossed in the slammer while in the big easy the cardinals ought to win.

1/3 fiesta. kansas st & oregon. hey, maybe visor head kelly’s last game for my beloved ducks. or does he do one more year before turning pro? we wait and see. fingers crossed. in the mean time, someone let mike bellotti know he can have his old job back if he wants it. works for me. i think this game will probably set some sort of bowling scoring record. if it doesn’t it might be a yawner. another game i’ll more than likely watch at least for a while. maybe. QUACK QUACK!!! says it all.

1/7 BCS Championship. notre dame & alabama. i generally don’t watch this game. regardless of who’s playing. you shouldn’t either. take the wife out for a nice dinner instead. tell her you love her and thanks for letting you ruin most of her saturdays for the past 4 months or so. also, a few week nights as well. the winner? i don’t care. nick satan or the domers? please. ok. so i hope the domers win. they probably won’t. meh. i mean the season has been over for over a month. come on. at this point, who cares? other than those involved. or the dimwitted who bought tickets to this let’s cram as many commercials into a three/four hour period as we can in this made for TV mind numbing mess. riddle me this, who won the crystal thing five years ago? exactly.

only 11 games out of the bazillion or so bowler games? yep. most of them are turkeys and not worth your time. mine in particular. i’ll tune in to a few of my picks, if only in passing. it’s just hard to work up any sort of interest in these bowl games anymore. it’s more about the TV money and how much money the local yokels can fleece from the rubes who buy tickets to these turkeys than it is about college football. sad but true. it’s the brave new world of college ball. schools bouncing from league to league searching for the golden ring, egg, or big money bowl shopping. raiders of the lost ark as it were. the coming of the dreaded super conferences paired with a sharp wooden stake to be driven into the hearts of those of us who remember back when. crap.

is it september yet?

jmh