Welcome to the Bowl Pool and First 2 games analysis

 Welcome again to the 2023/24 Annual Bowl Pool.  Last year, we had 66 entries, and this year we have 69 entries.  That’s improvement.  I’ve done very little promotion of this pool, so any improvement year over year is welcome and attributable to you guys, who have really helped keep this pool going.  Since we have >50 entries, IU will be paying out 3 places.  That’s been pretty typical for this pool as it’s a harder pool to enter than the March Madness pool, so there are a lot fewer people that enter more than once.  There are some though, and given the nature of the Bowl Pool it’s worth reiterating that if you can’t have more than one sheet finish in the money.  If 2 of your sheets finishes in the money, you’ll get the better pay-out, but then we will ignore your other sheet and move everyone else up one position.  That keeps a few more people in it for longer, although I’ve only ever had this happen once.

For fun, I entered a sheet called “Sports Illustrated” that I ripped off from some guy who writes for Sports Illustrated.  I always like to have those kinds of “experts” in the pool to compare how good they are compared to the rest of us.  More often than not, they are bad, but they did win it one year.  If that happens, I’ll donate whatever winnings to the local food bank or something like that.

I don’t really remember it being this way in years past, but there are more games going to day than any other day except for next Saturday.  As a matter of fact, there are only 13 days with games at all this year.  I am a big proponent of spreading the games out and maybe having 1 or 2 on each day, but apparently the people that put on these bowls don’t see things from the perspective of someone that feels compelled to follow these games and write something up about them.  So be it.

So, I’ve watched precious little college football this season, and almost none of it were schools that are playing in the Myrtle Beach Bowl.  I tried to look up “fun” reasons to watch this game, and the best I could find was that it is played on the weird teal turf of Coastal Carolina’s stadium.  That’s kinda cool.  Most of the articles about “Why you should watch Bowl X” articles were actually game analysis, which I care a little less about.  I’m largely watching for the points I wagered on the game itself.  One thing most of these articles point out is that a lot of players that played during the regular season are not going to play because they are in the transfer portal.  Whose brilliant idea was it to open the transfer portal between the regular season and the postseason?  Seriously, they could have moved that window to February and we wouldn’t have to account for so many players not playing in these games.  This is especially bad when we are talking about teams that are not Power 5 conference teams.  Teams like Ohio and Georgia Southern are going to have an inordinate amount of players going into the portal if they think they have a chance to go to a more prestigious school and improve their potential draft stock.  That’s bad for people that watch Bowl games (ie. The fans).

Anyway, here are the particulars about the Myrtle Beach Bowl:

Vegas Line: Georgia Southern -2.5

Median Pick: Ohio for 1

Average pick: Georgia Southern for 1.2

Picks for Ohio: 36 (average points: 11.58)

Picks for Georgia Southern: 33 (average points: 15.06)

I would argue this is a great way to start the Bowl Pool.  It’s a game that almost no one has consensus on who they like.  The exceptions being Brent E. #4, who was the lone sole to put this in his Top 10 (with 36 points).  That being said, it doesn’t look like anyone distributed their picks in 42-1 fashion.  There may have been some people that did 1-42.  I don’t love those strategies, but the right strategy is whatever wins, so who am I to pass judgement.

The second game of the day is the Celebration Bowl.  Here are the details about that:

Vegas Line: Florida A&M -7

Median Pick: Florida A&M for 13

Average Picks: Florida A&M for 13.7

Picks for Florida A&M: 60 (average pick: 17.43 points)

Picks for Howard: 9 (average pick: 11.56 points)

 

From year to year, I tend not to remember most of these Bowl games.  Evern the bigger ones, I can’t remember from year to year.  Like, who played in the Cotton Bowl last year?  I couldn’t tell you.  What about the Alamo Bowl?  The Gasparilla Bowl?  No idea.  I’m going to guess that last years Celebration Bowl featured Jackson State, since Deion Sanders was in this Bowl game seemingly every year.  Now that he’s off to Colorado, our Bowl season is void of a million think pieces about the brilliance of his coaching style.  Hopefully, you will survive by reading the million and one that were written about him during the regular season.

Anyway, the Celebration Bowl every year pits two HBCUs against each other, and that’s great.  I like it because both teams won their respective conferences and it never deviates from that formula.  All the other Bowl games fluctuate as to what conference will send who where, but not the Celebration Bowl.  That makes it easier to recall its history.  Plus, this games tends to be wildly entertaining.

One strange note about this game is that in a lot of analysis, they leave it out.  I even left it out of last years pool, mostly because I was probably using ESPN as a guide to what the Bowl games were and they left it out.  That was a mistake on my part.  I should never leave this game out.  It’s fantastic.  Not only that, but it puts a small amount of extra pressure on you guys, since there is so little analysis of the game compared to the other Bowl Games.  For example, the picks I stole from Sports Illustrated didn’t have this game listed at all.  So, I had to figure out who to take and for how many points and wedge it in.  Good times.

We get a little break before the next run of games, so I’ll cut it off here.  I’ll be back with points standings and more details later today.

Good luck to everyone!!!!