[mebaran]

Alright everybody, that time of year again. Bowl-maniacs rejoice!

Basically, a confidence pool is one in which you rank each bowl from 1-34. If I was 100% confident that Alabama would beat Texas, I would rank it 34. If I had absolutely no clue who would win, I'd rank it 1 (least confident). Whoever has the MOST points right at the end of the pool wins. Simple enough, right?

My question to all: What would you rank the bowl games this year? (i.e. what would your confidence rankings be?)

Here are all 34 bowl games (IN ORDER OF START TIME)

New Mexico
Fresno State vs. Wyoming Albuquerque, N.M.
University Stadium Dec. 19
4:30 p.m. ESPN
St. Petersburg pres. by Beef 'O' Brady's
UCF vs. Rutgers St. Petersburg, Fla.
Tropicana Field Dec. 19
8 p.m. ESPN
R+L Carriers New Orleans
Southern Miss vs. Middle Tennessee New Orleans
Louisiana Superdome Dec. 20
8:30 p.m. ESPN
MAACO Las Vegas
Oregon State vs. BYU Las Vegas
Sam Boyd Stadium
Dec. 22
8 p.m. ESPN
S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia
Utah vs. Cal San Diego
Qualcomm Stadium
Dec. 23
8 p.m. ESPN
Sheraton Hawaii
Nevada vs. SMU Honolulu
Aloha Stadium
Dec. 24
8 p.m. ESPN
Little Caesars
Marshall vs. Ohio Detroit
Ford Field
Dec. 26
1 p.m. ESPN
Meineke Car Care
Pitt vs. North Carolina Charlotte, N.C.
BkofAma Stadium
Dec. 26
4:30 p.m. ESPN
Emerald
Boston College vs. USC San Francisco
AT&T Park
Dec. 26
8 p.m. ESPN
Gaylord Hotels Music City
Kentucky vs. Clemson Nashville, Tenn.
LP Field
Dec. 27
8:30 p.m. ESPN
AdvoCare V100 Independence
Texas A&M vs. Georgia Shreveport, La.
Independence Stadium
Dec. 28
5 p.m. ESPN2
EagleBank
UCLA vs. Temple Washington, D.C.
RFK Stadium
Dec. 29
4:30 p.m. ESPN
Champs Sports
Miami vs. Wisconsin Orlando, Fla.
Florida Citrus Bowl
Dec. 29
8 p.m. ESPN
Roady's Humanitarian
Bowling Green vs. Idaho Boise, Idaho
Bronco Stadium
Dec. 30
4:30 p.m. ESPN
Pacific Life Holiday
Arizona vs. Nebraska San Diego
Qualcomm Stadium
Dec. 30
8 p.m. ESPN
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces
Houston vs. Air Force Fort Worth, Texas
Amon G. Carter Stadium
Dec. 31
Noon ESPN
Brut Sun
Oklahoma vs. Stanford El Paso, Texas
Sun Bowl
Dec. 31
2 p.m. CBS
Texas
Navy vs. Missouri Houston
Reliant Stadium
Dec. 31
3:30 p.m. ESPN
Insight
Minnesota vs. Iowa State Tempe, Ariz.
Sun Devil Stadium
Dec.
31
6 p.m. NFL Network
Chick-fil-A
Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee Atlanta
Georgia Dome
Dec. 31
7:30 p.m. ESPN
Outback
Northwestern vs. Auburn Tampa, Fla.
Raymond James Stadium
Jan. 1
11 a.m. ESPN
Capital One
Penn State vs. LSU Orlando, Fla.
Florida Citrus Bowl
Jan. 1
1 p.m. ABC
Konica Minolta Gator
West Virginia vs. Florida State Jacksonville, Fla.
Municipal Stadium Jan. 1
1 p.m. CBS
Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi
Ohio State vs. Oregon Pasadena, Calif.
Rose Bowl Jan. 1
4:30 p.m. ABC
Allstate Sugar
Florida vs. Cincinnati New Orleans
Louisiana Superdome
Jan. 1
8:30 p.m. FOX
International
South Florida vs. Northern Illinois Toronto, Canada
Rogers Centre Jan. 2
Noon ESPN2
Papajohns.com
South Carolina vs. UConn Birmingham, Ala.
Legion Field Jan. 2
2 p.m. ESPN
AT&T Cotton
Oklahoma State vs. Ole Miss Arlington, Texas
Cowboys Stadium Jan. 2
2 p.m. FOX
AutoZone Liberty
Arkansas vs. East Carolina Memphis, Tenn.
Liberty Bowl Jan. 2
5:30 p.m. ESPN
Valero Alamo
Michigan State vs. Texas Tech San Antonio
Alamodome Jan. 2
9 p.m. ESPN
Tostitos Fiesta
Boise State vs. TCU Glendale, Ariz.
U. of Phoenix Stadium Jan. 4
8 p.m. FOX
FedEx Orange
Iowa vs. Georgia Tech Miami
Land Shark Stadium Jan. 5
8 p.m. FOX
GMAC
Central Michigan vs. Troy Mobile, Ala.
Ladd-Peebles Stadium Jan. 6
7 p.m. ESPN
Citi BCS National Championship Game
Texas vs. Alabama Pasadena, Calif.
Rose Bowl Jan. 7
8 p.m. ABC

[mebaran]

Initially, I am not seeing any ridiculous upsets, but I will continue to look. Feel free to post your rankings, I will when mine are done!

[mebaran]

My first rank this year is prob going to be Texas Tech over Mich. St. This game is going to be played in Texas and the Spartans did not look very good against good teams this year. I would probably rank this between 34-30 on my list. Also, just quickly looked at Nevada over SMU. That one is probably also in the 30s for my rankings.

[BigdaddyQH]

There are too many games to be ranking 1-34. I assume that the line is not involed here, so the obvious plays would be to take the huge favorites and rank them high. Pick your upsets and rank them low. Other than that, I have no guess.

[porterkid69]

CBS sports.com has this exact contest.

[GGPLAYER]

Interesting....I was going to start this very thread myself today. I am involved in one of these pools and I never seem to do well. I am anxious to hear what everyone has to say.

Yes you pick these games straight up. It's a interesting way to do things since you don't need to have the most correct in order to win, just the most points at the end. I will add my thoughts and picks once I get thru looking at all these games!

[mebaran]

There are too many games to be ranking 1-34. I assume that the line is not involed here, so the obvious plays would be to take the huge favorites and rank them high. Pick your upsets and rank them low. Other than that, I have no guess.

Yes I agree this is a lot of games, but it's played in almost the same way as march madness brackets are. POINTS wins you the pool, not percentage of picks correct. The thing that makes this interesting is that most bowl games are close matches (i.e. not too many huge underdogs).

[mebaran]

CBS sports.com has this exact contest.

Thanks for the heads up.

[iceminers26]

goods stuff