College Bowl picks - Volume 1

Trying to focus more strongly on the Bowl games this year, in hopes of putting together a solid record. 

New Mexico Bowl -  Let's start this off by stating the obvious.  Both teams have absolutely brutal defenses, averaging 190 and 213 yards allowed on the ground.  Both teams also have dominant rushing attacks, with both averaging well north of 200 yards per game.  With the dominant offenses and piss-poor defenses, the over seems obvious, right?  You would be wrong, I am going to go the opposite direction.  Both teams running the crap out of the ball means churning out a lot of 1st downs, and allowing the clock to continue to wind.  The total is huge, 75 as of now after opening at 76.  That requires 11 TD's to beat you.  Nevada has gone over in 6 of 11 games this year, and Arizona has gone over in 8 of 11 games this year.  But Nevada has only seen a high total of 70, and Arizona only has 1 game with a total higher than we see for this game.  Add in the fact that Nevada will have 2 weeks off before playing, and Arizona 3 weeks off, and you could expect a bit of a slow start.  Those things together just make it too difficult to project this game to easily reach the 70's.  It may very well reach the 60's, but 38-31 will be fine for the under backers.  Play:  UNDER 76  3*

Potato Bowl - I'm kind of a fan of both of these teams.  Toledo has a close loss to Arizona (though they were admittedly outplayed), and has a win over a decent Cincy team, and a close loss to class of MAC Northern Illinois.  Utah State beat Utah, who wasn't very good, almost beat Wisconsin while they were reeling.  Lost to BYU in a pathetic 6-3 game, and beat La Tech, a team that plays zero defense.  Both teams played 1 point games last year in the bowls, with Toledo beating Air Force, and Utah losing to Ohio (also of the MAC).  I personally think the MAC plays some good football, and this Toledo team is led by solid QB play.  Toledo tends to play to the level of their opponents, never really blowing anyone out, but also being within a TD in all of their losses.  I think Toledo is good enough to keep this close, and is a potential threat to win.  Play:  Toledo +10



Summary:
12/15:  3*  Arizona/Nevada UNDER 76
12/15:  4*  Toledo +10