Greetings oh wonderful college football fans. The wait is over and the bowl season has officially begun. We kick off with the Bahamas Bowl in Nassau between Middle Tennessee 6-6 (124) and Toledo 7-5 (100). Toledo is currently holding on to a 17-14 advantage with 2:16 to go in the third. Vegas thinks Toledo is the better team -10.5 and the GCR picks them as well 58.8% but let’s dig into them just a bit. The Blue Raiders’ play in Conference USA and had wins over just one bowl eligible team (Marshall). The Rockets from the MAC beat Ball St and W Michigan who are bowl eligible. MTSU’s offensive efficiency is 105 (they score 10.5 points for every 10 points their opponents give up on average) vs Toledo’s defensive efficiency of 128 (they give up 10 points for every 12.8 points their opponents normally score). When Toledo has the ball the OER is 113 vs a DER of 109. It certainly looks on paper like a one-sided game (hence the Vegas line), but…

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The Blue Raiders just scored on a nice rush up the middle taking the underdog lead 21-17 on the first play of the 4th quarter. So much for serious analysis. One caveat for the bowl predictions: a billion coaching changes, transfer portals, and announcements for the draft have pretty much screwed up every team. Good luck out there if you actually put money on this crazy stuff.

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Later today starting at 6:00 (all times Eastern) tonight we have the Cure Bowl out of Orlando. This year’s version features a really good matchup. Coastal Carolina 10-2 (35) of the Sun Belt will take of N Illinois 9-4 (46) out of the MAC (in fact, the champion). The Chanticleers only losses were to 10-game winner App St and bowl bound Georgia St – they did not play any other bowl eligible teams. The Huskies lost to bowl teams Wyoming, #2 Michigan, Kent St (who they beat for the MAC title), and W Michigan. They not only beat 4 other bowl eligible teams (Ball St, C Michigan, E Michigan, and Toledo), they played in the only division other than the SEC West in which every team is playing in the post season. On offense, Coastal takes in a 126 OER against a weak 89 DER for the Huskies. When N Illinois has the ball, a 114 OER will face a 120 DER. Schedule differences being what they are, CCAR has back to back 10 win seasons for a reason and are favored by 12.0 in Vegas. The GCR agrees, but closer with CCAR 59.6%.

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Also tonight is the first game of the FCS semifinals when James Madison 11-1 (76) and North Dakota St 11-1 (77) replay last year’s championship game (NDST won). Vegas sees a repeat -4.5 and the GCR agrees 55.1%. If you aren’t at a lame holiday party or if you went to one, gave up, and came home, watch this game at 9:15. I really suspect the winner of this game wins the championship game.

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During the bowl games, I’ll update the chart below with some color coding on correct guesses and misses. I won’t post the GCR prediction until game day (or the night before) after all previous games are added. I’ll update the Vegas lines as they change. I’ll also keep track of FBS conference bowl records but as of right now, they are all 0-0.

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Here is your list of the 2021-22 post season games (Natty and FCS championship not yet included).