College Football Bowl Season Predictions 2019

We enter the last few weeks now for College football for the 2019 season.  Bowl season is a whole lot more variable, as you try to guess which players will actually play, which ones will skip and who wants to actually be at these games.  Same goes for coaching staffs as well.  So take these picks with a grain of salt, especially as we get closer to the games. 

Home Team	Home Team Win Chance	Away Team	Away Team Win Chance	Home Margin
Charlotte	24.78	Buffalo	75.22	-8.4
Utah State	65.3	Kent State	34.7	4.9
Appalachian State	93.96	Alabama-Birmingham	6.04	18.8
Florida International	27.41	Arkansas State	72.59	-7.5
Washington	60.76	Boise State	39.24	3.1
San Diego State	49.66	Central Michigan	50.34	-0.2
Florida Atlantic	43.03	Southern Methodist	56.97	-2.1
Liberty	24.35	Georgia Southern	75.65	-8.7
Central Florida	95	Marshall	5	19.9
Hawaii	50.48	Brigham Young	49.52	0.3
Pittsburgh	75.03	Eastern Michigan	24.97	8.3
Louisiana Tech	32.27	Miami(FL)	67.73	-5.6
Washington State	35.44	Air Force	64.56	-4.7
Southern California	37.59	Iowa	62.41	-3.8
Wake Forest	40.2	Michigan State	59.8	-3.1
Temple	36.88	North Carolina	63.12	-4.1
Texas A&M	55.62	Oklahoma State	44.38	1.7
Ohio State	73.31	Clemson	26.69	7.5
Notre Dame	70.96	Iowa State	29.04	6.9
Oklahoma	29.47	Louisiana State	70.53	-6.6
Penn State	60.89	Memphis	39.11	3.4
Illinois	49.6	California	50.4	-0.2
Florida	88.77	Virginia	11.23	15.0
Mississippi State	64.21	Louisville	35.79	4.4
Western Michigan	48.34	Western Kentucky	51.66	-0.5
Florida State	47.15	Arizona State	52.85	-1.0
Wyoming	73.44	Georgia State	26.56	7.6
Navy	65.48	Kansas State	34.52	4.9
Virginia Tech	36.24	Kentucky	63.76	-4.1
Texas	33.82	Utah	66.18	-5.1
Michigan	32.83	Alabama	67.17	-5.4
Minnesota	25.3	Auburn	74.7	-8.1
Georgia	72.39	Baylor	27.61	7.2
Wisconsin	64.08	Oregon	35.92	4.4
Cincinnati	75.92	Boston College	24.08	8.4
Tennessee	41.19	Indiana	58.81	-2.7
Ohio	79.23	Nevada	20.77	9.8
Tulane	79.27	Southern Mississippi	20.73	9.9
Miami(OH)	11.41	Louisiana	88.59	-14.8

2017 NCAAF Bowl Picks

One of the best times of the college football season is bowl time.  You get to see teams that rarely (if ever) play each other match up in odd locations.  It makes forecasting these games much more difficult, especially when you then factor in how many teams have gone through corrdinator changes and coaching changes. 

But, its still fun to take a look at how the game will shake up.  There are two tabs on the sheet for that, one in traditional game order and the other in order of projected margin, the excitability factor.

Vegas Post Season Bowl Predictions

Vegas loves to get an early jump on predicting where teams will all fall throughout the season, and Jason Kirk over at SBNation has put together an approximate list of bowl matchups based on the Over/Unders.  I ran them through the predicted teams ratings to see what matchups would be good, and how the teams might fair in these hypothetical bowl match ups.  The best game is the Cotton Bowl, which I would love to see Lamar Jackson taking on the stout Badgers defense.  Man Ball would also reign in the Iowa Arkansas matchup, and Michigan LSU would again be a fantastic show.

There are not nearly as many blowouts as the program called for last year, although it does give low estimations for how worthy the Semi Finals are for the College Football Playoff (an 8 point Bama win over OU, and a 10 point Buckeye win over USC). 

2016 Bowl Projections

Bowl season is such a  fantastic time in college football.  The games are fun for the players, and they feature teams that normally don't get any chance to play one another.  It also leads to outcomes that are severely out of line with season numbers.  Teams lose coaches, players aren't up for games, and being in a very strange locale just messes with some teams.  Even so, there's always a baseline for teams, and its always fun to predict what'll happen.

Best Bowl matchups

The folks over at the SBNation main site released their big college football preview.  One of the most interesting pages that they do annually is their bowl projections.  I went ahead and categorized the matchups they gave by how close the projections put the bowl game being, as well as what the spread should be.

Team 1	Opponent	Team 1Win Chance	Average Spread	Departure from Even
Michigan State	UCLA	47.40%	-1	2.60%
Western Michigan	Appalachian State	52.90%	1	2.90%
Georgia Tech	Texas	53.00%	1	3.00%
Wisconsin	Arizona State	45.40%	-2	4.60%
Michigan	Georgia	44.60%	-2	5.40%
Oklahoma	Southern California	56.00%	2	6.00%
Central Florida	Bowling Green State	56.00%	2	6.00%
Kansas State	California	56.90%	3	6.90%
Minnesota	Arkansas	41.50%	-3	8.50%
Nebraska	Texas A&M	40.80%	-3	9.20%
Utah State	Utah	40.10%	-4	9.90%
West Virginia	Missouri	39.30%	-4	10.70%
Oklahoma State	Louisiana State	38.50%	-4	11.50%
Louisville	Tennessee	38.30%	-4	11.70%
Alabama	Oregon	62.70%	4	12.70%
Texas-El Paso	New Mexico	35.80%	-5	14.20%
Boise State	Notre Dame	33.90%	-6	16.10%
Virginia Tech	Penn State	66.40%	6	16.40%
Toledo	Georgia Southern	67.00%	6	17.00%
Duke	Mississippi State	31.90%	-7	18.10%
Iowa	Arizona State	31.40%	-7	18.60%
East Carolina	Louisiana-Lafayette	69.70%	7	19.70%
Florida State	Auburn	70.40%	7	20.40%
Baylor	Mississippi	72.20%	8	22.20%
Arkansas State	San Jose State	72.90%	8	22.90%
Houston	South Carolina	25.20%	-9	24.80%
Temple	Rice	75.50%	10	25.50%
North Carolina State	Stanford	23.20%	-10	26.80%
Northern Illinois	Colorado State	77.20%	11	27.20%
Cincinnati	Western Kentucky	78.90%	11	28.90%
San Diego State	Texas State	79.40%	12	29.40%
Ohio State	Texas Christian	79.50%	11	29.50%
Pittsburgh	Memphis	81.00%	12	31.00%
Maryland	Air Force	83.60%	14	33.60%
Miami(FL)	Marshall	85.80%	15	35.80%
Middle Tennessee State	Akron	86.10%	15	36.10%
Old Dominion	Brigham Young	10.90%	-17	39.10%
North Carolina	Navy	93.20%	21	43.20%

The best matchup in their projection is a battle of old school powers in Michigan State and UCLA, while the UNC-Navy game would be one to skip.