Mikey's Bowl Predictions

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all!

I am in a bit of a hiatus but I can tell you the Sports Blog will be back strong in 2012. For now, I am dropping in with my predictions for the 2011-12 College Bowl Season. For the record, I think there are WAYYYY too many bowl games and that means WAYYY too many 6-6 teams or 6-7 in UCLA's case...no way they should be in a bowl with you had teams like a Western Kentucky who went 7-5. Anywho, more about the bowl system on another day...here are my predictions for this season's bowl games. Just so you know...I cut out all the corporate names attached to bowls wherever I could. I know corporate prostitution is common in sports...but I don't have to like it.

New Mexico
Wyoming over Temple..honestly I don't care but I have family from Wyoming so for my Aunt Esther Maude and cousins Chip and David..there ya go!

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Utah State over Ohio...Utah State is one of the better teams you haven't seen...if they are smart, they will go with all blue on the Smurf turf.

New Orleans
San Diego State over Louisiana-Lafayette...the Aztecs over the Ragin' Cajun's.....SDSU gets it on the cooler nickname.

Beef 'O' Brady's
Florida International over Marshall...I was leaning toward the Herd here but gotta go with the Golden Panthers...FIU had no bowl appearances before last year's Little Caesars Bowl and now they will have two bowls and two wins.

Poinsettia
TCU BIG over Louisiana Tech...TCU heads into the Big 12 with a frog-stomp over the Bulldogs.

Las Vegas
Boise State BIG over Arizona State..a missed FG against Nevada..again...keeps Boise out of the BCS..again. Kellen Moore heads to the NFL with a huge game over Sparky.

(if you are doing one of those bowl game contests where you rate your confidence in which bowl is more of a sure thing..use the previous two games as HIGHLY confident!)

Hawaii
Southern Miss over Nevada...high scoring game. Expect both teams in the high 30's or into the 40's. Brett Favre's alma mater crushed Houston's BCS dreams..now look for them to shut down the WolfPack's pistol.

Independence
Missouri over North Carolina...Missouri bids farewell to the Big 12 with a win over the Heels. The Tigers head to the SEC where they will be lucky to qualify for a bowl the next few years. How's that workin' for ya, Mizzou?

Little Caesars
Western Michigan over Purdue...MAC over Big 10? Absolutely. Alex Carder will be a name you hear in next April's NFL draft. The Broncos bring the Crazy Bread back to Kalamazoo.

Belk
Louisville over NC State...no, I don't know what the hell Belk is either.

Military Bowl
Toledo over Air Force...oddly enough, it's the Rockets air attack that will prevail over the AFA's ground game.

Holiday
Texas over California. Low scoring...look for the Horns young defense to dominate.

Champs Sports
Florida State over Notre Dame...remember a game between these two teams meant a lot more?

Alamo
Baylor over Washington...Alamo Bowl goes back to their original Pac 12-Big 12 matchup..the first of which featured Baylor's last bowl appearance until last season...RG3 dominates in what is probably his last game.

Armed Forces
BYU over Tulsa...at SMU's stadium while Amon Carter goes through a renovation. BTW, Tulsa...Golden Hurricane? Couldn't you at least make it plural?

Pinstripe
Iowa State over Rutgers even though this is a de facto home game for the Scarlet Knights.

Music City
Mississippi State over Wake Forest....great basketball game...football game, not so much.

Insight
Oklahoma over Iowa...OU in the Insight? Wow. Stoops will use this for motivation and OU will crush the Hawks.

Texas
Texas A&M over Northwestern...another high scoring affair, the Ags will be a little better in another de facto home game but watch out for Dan Persa of NU...he will give Reveille's boys fits.

Sun
Utah over Georgia Tech...usually its games like this that GT gives people fits with their triple option..however, Utah has seen it pretty much every year by playing Air Force. Glad to see the Sun Bowl still alive and kicking.

Liberty
Cincinnati over Vanderbilt...another bowl "home game" this time for Vandy..doesn't matter though, Bearcats win behind the QB with the coolest game in college football..Munchie Legaux..look it up.

Kraft Fight Hunger
Illinois over UCLA...bowl game fans will still be fighting hunger...the hunger for a good game after this...yuk.

Peach
Auburn over Virginia...big step down for the defending champs but a win none the less.

TicketCity
Houston over Penn State...the Cougars should be preparing for a BCS game if not for an embarrassing loss in the C-USA title game...look for Case Keenum to go nuts against a mentally worn down Nittany Lions team.

Outback
Michigan State over Georgia...Sparty will have had a long time to nurse the wound of their Big 10 title game loss. MSU gets their first bowl game win since 2001

Capital One
South Carolina over Nebraska...The Blackshirts are good but the Ol' Ball Coach and his Gamecocks have a pretty good defense his own self and Taylor Martinez tends to wilt in big games...take the Cocks. (Only in college football can you say that and get away with
it!)

Gator
Ohio State over Florida...Urban Meyer's old team against his soon to be team. The football gods smiled on this one. Remember the name Braxton Miller...he will be good today and better when Meyer gets ahold of him.

Rose
Oregon over Wisconsin...second straight trip to Pasadena for the Badgers...second straight loss and this one won't be pretty. Montee Ball will break Barry Sanders TD record and then the joyfulness will be over. The Ducks speed is nothing like Wisky
has seen. Also, who knows what funky uniform Oregon will come out in.


Fiesta
Oklahoma State over Stanford...whomever runs the scoreboard will be a busy person. It could end up that the first team to 50 wins the game. Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon play their last games for OSU and go out with a bang. Andrew Luck begins
to look at real estate in the Indianapolis area.

Sugar
Michigan over Virginia Tech...the Maize and Blue discovered something new this year...defense. That and a healthy Dennard Robinson (he's like a less talented RG3) mean that Michigan's return to the BCS is a success. They will expose Va Tech as
the fraud they are.

Orange
Clemson over West Virginia...speaking of frauds..I give you the Big East. Tajh Boyd and Clemson were a great story this season and they cap it off with Clemson's first BCS win.

Cotton
Arkansas over Kansas State..Arkansas hung tough in the best division in the country's toughest conference. K-State has been great under Bill Snyder and QB Collin Klein and will give the Hogs a fight but in the end, too much Pig.

BBVA Compass Bowl
SMU over Pittsburgh..in a rematch of the 1983 Cotton Bowl..sadly for the Panthers, Dan Marino isn't at quarterback and they just lost their coach to Arizona State after only one year. SMU, after no bowls in 25 years, will win their second in a row.

GoDaddy.com
Northern Illinois over Arkansas State...honestly, unless Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels are there naked..does anyone really care?

BCS National Championship Game
LSU over Alabama....Honey Badger don't care 'bout no rematch with Bama! Les Miles gets his second national championship. My question is this...the Mad Hatter likes to eat a little grass from the field before the game...does he do that with fake
grass like there is in the Superdome?