And we are back for another episode of Bowl Season 2024-25. Last night, the GCR moved to 5-0 when just picking the winner (aka straight up) and 3-2 against the spread so far. James Madison (9-4/61) trailed at halftime of the Boca Raton and covered the 7.5 point spread by kicking a field goal at the 2:00 time out to win 27-17. The Hilltoppers (8-6/86) fought back but couldn’t score or cover as I expected them to. That was a fun game to watch, especially because my daughter loves the W Kentucky Red Blob mascot. I’ve always liked James Madison for some reason, so we were able to talk through the games as rivals. The night game, with California (6-7/80) and UNLV (11-3/29) fighting for the LA Bowl title, saw CAL take an early lead and a late first half FG to be down only 1 at the break. I’ve often talked about how all sports seem to be exactly the right length that allow for some upsets, but not too many, but, generally, allowing the better team to win. Like in the earlier game, the better team pitched a shutout in the second half as UNLV won 24-13. It’s only the second double-digit season for them in 47 years, tying the 11-win record high set back in 1984. They played in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association which is now known as the Big West Conference which exists as a non-football conference today.
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Here is the conference ranking for the bowl games so far. The GCR Rating is a new thing this year. It allows a non-biased (yes, I hear you, Bigly) assessment of how each conference has performed. A perfect score would be 1.000. So far, with the Rebels win last night, the Mountain West has the lead.
| Conf | Bowl Games | Wins | Losses | Points Scored | Points Allowed | GCR Rating | GCR Rank |
| MWC | 5 | 1 | 0 | 24 | 13 | 0.824 | 1 |
| SUN | 8 | 2 | 0 | 57 | 40 | 0.794 | 2 |
| AAC | 8 | 1 | 0 | 42 | 37 | 0.766 | 3 |
| B12 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 37 | 42 | 0.234 | 4 |
| MAC | 7 | 0 | 1 | 23 | 30 | 0.217 | 5 |
| USA | 4 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 27 | 0.193 | 6 |
| ACC | 13 | 0 | 1 | 13 | 24 | 0.176 | 7 |
| Big Ten | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 8 |
| IND | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 8 |
| P12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 8 |
| SEC | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.000 | 8 |
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Tonight, we have a single game with a 7:00pm (all times Eastern) kickoff on ESPN2, the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl is our 4th straight (and last until Monday) bowl named for a city. This one features the Sun Belt East’s 2nd place finisher, the Ga Southern Eagles (8-4/69) facing, in just their second season in the FBS, Conference USA’s 3rd place finisher who missed out on the championship game by tiebreaker, the Sam Houston Bearkats (9-3/66). Both teams showed improvement over last season: GASO was 6-7 and SHOU was 3-9. The season was not without peril for the Eagles as they had bad losses to Old Dominion (5-7/103) and Troy (4-8/110), but they did beat Sun Belt champion Marshall (10-3/45) and James Madison (9-4/61) in back-to-back weeks leading to a 4-2 record against bowl-eligible teams. With an opponent record of 82-66 (.554) they had an overall effective campaign. Sam Houston’s opponents were just 62-84 (.425), good for 132nd in strength of schedule which could have had an impact on their record. They broke even at 2-2 against bowl-eligible teams and were an outstanding 5-0 in 1-score games. With all things considered, they figured out a way to win, even though they were not expected to contend for the conference title. Vegas likes GASO-3.5 down from -4.5 this morning, which the GCR understands because the prediction model has the Bearkats winning 52% and they will cover. The details are in the table below.
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That’s it for today. Tune in early tomorrow because not only does the first game kickoff at noon, but we will have our first 12-team playoff game in the evening. Thank you for reading and, especially, for sharing with others, G
| Time | Bowl (Location) | Team | Team | Vegas | GCR Win | GCR Cover |
| 7:00 | R&L Carriers New Orleans (New Orleans) | Ga Southern (8-4/69 | Sam Houston (9-3/66) | GASO-3.5 | SHOU 52% | SHOU |
