Welcome to the solid verbal hell that for me, I'm a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy.
You want to be happy for date Edo steak is that woo woom?
And Dan and Tie Welcome back to these solid verbal boys and girls. My name is Ty hilden Brandt. That guy over there, the one, the only, the incomparable, still the incomparable. Dan Rubenstein, sir, how you doing today?
I'm good. I haven't eaten anything today. It's twelve fifteen local time, it's lunchtime. And as part of the fun of Bowl previews, of which this is our first part. Yes, I like to live vicariously through people going to various Bowl games. I think I'm going to be in California for all, be in California for the Rose. I don't know when, what date, the LA Bowl is, the Holiday Bowl.
I think I'll be around. I don't believe I'm going to try and go to any of those games, but I try to live vicariously through the stomachs of people attending perhaps a game and a place they've never been before, like oh, man, I'm going to Mobile, I'm going to Detroit. I'm going to Frisco, going to Fort Worth? Where should I be eating? And then I look very with spending not that much time looking just a very cursory, non deeply researched activity, and like.
Oh man, I would eat at Goldies. I would ey at.
Goldies and Fort Worth number one barbecue place in Texas according to Texas Monthly in the latest rankings.
It looks amazing. So now I'm starving as we headed too episode one. So here we are, here we are. We are recording this on Friday, December the tenth, So if anything big breaks over the weekend, don't blame us. We're doing our best here to get out in front of bowls. We've got bowls in front of us. We've got a big contest that we're running over on Playwinterwonders dot Com for our Patreon community. It's a bowl confidence pool. And what we're trying to do this show and next
show is get you ready for that. Okay, I've got theories, You've got theories. We've gone through and we've broken up Bull Season into two parts. Today's part one we're going to go through. At least I'm going to go through. I'm going to give you my picks for each of those games. We're going to give you a general level of confidence, how confident we are I am or I'm
not with respect to those games. And I'm also going to talk you through some of my Kaka Mamy theories as to how you should pick you a little pool. You know that I've got theories. They're not quite conspiracy theories, but they're not not conspiracy theories with respect to bowl confidence pool. So we get into that. You've got the
food thing. And at time of recording, we didn't see the standard issue article that we find every year, the annual article, the write of passage that tells us what the bull swag is, what the gifts are for the kids playing in the game. So we can't provide that at this time, but we will put up the bets and we will cover that as soon as somebody decides to publish that information.
Yeah, I don't have any recommendations myself during gift season guide. Maybe I can give pizza item recommendations. I don't have anything, you know, I haven't bought that much stuff this year. So yeah, that's that's the best we can do in terms of bull swag. Maybe it'll come out here, right, Maybe it'll come out the next week or two and we can do an addendum to these Bowl previews talking about the different products available and being gifted to the
players playing in these Bowl games. But it's an especially just back to the football and way to evaluate. And by the way, I came up with hilden Brand's hunches. Hilden Brand's hunches on your theories.
No, it's not bad.
It's your last name is particularly like verbose, and just it's tough to be alliterative with ties, touches ties.
I don't know, I don't know. It's not there yet. Well, this is not your finest work, but you'll get there.
I agree, I agree, But no, this is it's a It's arguably the wackiest Bowl season to preview because of the number of coaching changes we've got, key opt outs, and just the changes across the sport that I think it is just gonna make it tricky.
Well, I'm excited to dive in and do this with you. We've got I think twenty two or twenty three games that we're gonna go through a lost count. There are a lot of Bowl games forty four in total, that if you're playing our Playwinter Wonders contest you're going to have to pick from. We will do our best to help you decipher, to help you analyze the playing field,
but you got to go out Playwinterwonders dot com. If you're already part of our Patreon community, you can just click on the posts within Patreon and the instructions are right there for how to get into our group. Otherwise, if you are interested, maybe if you just want to join up for a month or whatever, I mean, totally cool, whatever you want to do, Playwinterwonders dot com is where you can go and find out more intel on that.
Don't forget Solid Giveaway dot com still going on. Got a new piece of merch that we're giving away this time around, perhaps ever so fittingly, giving away a signed Desmond Howard Minnie Heimott. You've got until January the tenth, so the day of the National Championship, to get your hat in that or your name in that hat. Excuse mest the hat in the ring? Yeah, hack whatever. Sure you know what we're going what we're doing here to
win that Desmond Howard signed mini helmet. A few steps that we need from you, including give us a review give us a subscription on Apple or Spotify, those types of stuff, So going out, so I'll giveaway dot Com. And last, but not least certainly forballers dot Com is the Patreon community that you hear us talking about time and again, but fun place to come and hang if you are a college football fan, Daniel.
Yeah, extra shows. We put in a ton of time reacting to big hires, streams, Q and A shows. The discord is popping. It's it's my favorite part of the season now.
I love it. So we hope to see you there. Check it out. For ballers dot com, we are we are hoping you join up. Are you ready to get into bulls yea, buddy, This New Year's Eve will be so awesome.
Singing with me, Dan, But we do have Jimmy Kimmel entering into Bold season, so it doesn't make sense that you played that.
We do have a Jimmy Kimmel ball that we'll talk about here momentarily. We also have games again on New Year's Eve, playoff games in New Year's Eve, which is far and away my biggest pet peeve about this damn sport. Yeah, I can't believe they're still doing this. I can't believe nobody has talked any since into Bill Hancock. I know these dates are sent all him. It is Bill Hancock's fault.
You can't tell me otherwise. Until we get a new agreement, until there's a new playoff format, expansion, what have you. We're probably stuck with this dumb idea of playing games of New Year's Eve. I know it's not that big a deal, but whatever, Yeah, whatever, I mean, it's during the day, right, your your big plans at night for your you know, five hundred dollars a plate dinners that I sure you go to every year. That's not affected.
I don't believe. Right, it's a little earlier on in the day the first game is, but the second game, the second game is pushing up in ye into that nightcap. Yeah, never mind, I'm wrong. Yeah, I hate it. We're not talking about that game today though. Now we're going to be talking about the first half of games. This half of games runs up through December the twenty eighth, going all the way up through the Guaranteed Rate Bowl at Chase Field in Phoenix. Okay, here is the way that
this thing works. Dan. The rules of a confidence pool. Basically, you're picking straight winners. You go through, you pick who you think is going to win each game. Then you go back through and your rank each game from in this case, one to forty four in terms of how confident you are in the result. So you'd give one point to the team the winner that you're released confident in, forty four to the game to the winner that you're
most confident in. Very basic. Here are my rooks. I've got three of them with respect to these Bowl confidence pools. It may mean I finish in last, I don't care. This is the way I'm speaking from the chest. This is the way that I like to pick this pool. The first and most important rule is one that I stole from my friend East Coast Elliott, who was part of the show many moons ago. I'm sure I could text him and on a moment's notice, he'd be happy
to come on and talk more about this. But has he figured out how to use a phone yet, I'm not sure. Unclear.
I've gotten text from him where he's just like, did he just fully forget that the letter T exists? It's great, he's the best.
He's a total wild card, but he is the best person I've ever met when it comes to Bowl confidence because he always is in the top tier of any pool we've ever run, and I'll see if I can get him in this one.
And by the way, one of those people, and I don't think i'm speaking out a turn because I'm not reveal anything personal, but one of those people who's both a wild card and has at least at one point occupied like a very important job, right, yes, a job that does not handl like you need to be specifically
and especially qualified to possess that kind of job. Absolutely, And he's just one of those people, like I've seen you try to do very basic things and yet you are qualified to do this very advanced thing.
It's wild He's the best East Coast Elliott has a strategy, and that is to front load your confidence points. His theory has always been that there's a much bigger disparity between the teams playing early than the team's playing in
the bigger Bowl games late. And I know it kind of sounds crazy, but the other thing to consider is that pretty much every online system and I should have looked at ours before saying this, but pretty much every online system that I've ever played a bole confidence pool using it will wait the points differently, so it'll say one point for the Bahamas Bowl and forty four points for the playoff game. Elliott's point has always been, I
don't know who's gonna win those late games. The teams are much closer when it comes to you know, competition level and skill level and yeah, you know, just general competency. I don't want to pick those games. I don't want to put forty four points on that. I want to put forty four points on the Bahamas Bowl. Flip that script, do all your points early if you can.
Are arbitraged? Would that be the right word to describe his strategy? Right, You're finding weaknesses in the system to take advantage, right in a sense. In a sense, it's just a different spin on it. And so everybody knows the team's playing late, right, Those are the bigger Many teams, the blue bloods that everybody Ohio States and whoever.
But not a whole lot of people out there, at least not that you're playing against in your bawl pools, are going to know much about middle ten see in Toledo.
Do you or Elliott, do you feel strongly for or against any specific conference?
Right?
Because you can say, like, I don't know if you have the data to prove it. Be like, I love betting against MAC defenses, right, they don't have the skill the talent level on defenses. And if you're giving me Mac versus American Mac versus Sun Belt Mac versus Conference USA, I'm rolling.
Otherwise No, Now, I don't have that, but I have two other rules here. Okay. Secondly, if a team lost its coach, m pick their opponent. Not in every case, not in every case, but at least give it strong consideration, even if it doesn't really make sense on paper. Consider it. If there's a monster injury, considerate. We've got this thing with guys skipping Bowl games, opting out.
Well it's not even just the opt outs, but it's the opt outs and the transfer stuff, opt.
Out, transfers, any of that stuff. Consider it. When it comes to bullseason. Well, yeah, all right, I think that's od, But consider it.
We have we're recording this on the tenth, so we have ten days of transfers and opt outs between now and the Bulls beginning. And so like I just saw this morning, Texas lost two DB's not that Texas is a bull time, but we're gonna it's gonna come out in chunks, so people are scrambling to find new spots in the portal, be it on the FBS or FCS level. So you know there's gonna be just a lot of
roster turnover. So I suppose you can go with teams if that's your your strategy, Go with teams that have a little bit more consistency and uh less attrition.
And the third and most important rule in bowl season, mm hmm. Pick the team that wants it more, that wants it more like total and tangible. Pick the team that you think is more motivated, even if you think it's a total mismatch. Oh, use the points spread as a guide for sure, use your own eyes as a guide. For sure. You've watched college football the same way Dan and I have. But my first consideration when picking each
of these games is which team is more motivated? You cided a report about Hawaii, yes, on one of the last couple shows that we did, how the Todd Graham thing may not be going so well Hawaii football. They lost Chavon Cordero, they lost their starting running back. Those guys are going elsewhere, and the guys who are still there say that Todd Graham makes them not want to play football.
Maybe don't pick Hawaiian in that game. Just I hope that's not the case. But I hope for those guys that are especially down on playing football that maybe they find a new home and find rekindle their love for the game.
Which team actually wants to be there is the most important factor to me, So not only where you're putting your points, not only what you're considering, but I think in this case, the motivation thing is is the big ones. So the caveat is if you want to get the points, you got to win the games. So you're still trying to pick the winners here, and I could end up finishing dead last. I will tell you it's never happened before. I've always done pretty well using this formula, but it
could happen. There's a first for everything.
I am going to go a little bit simpler. I go with the team with the better points per drive, defense, absent major drama among the coaching ranks, or any reason, quarterback injury, any reason that would sway things otherwise, if all things are relatively equal, I think defense and effort travels.
And to me that you know if a team has the number twenty two points per drive defense and they're playing against the team with the number eighty nine points per drive defense, and there's no drama otherwise between the two teams, I'll just take Team A. I won't even look at the name of the school. I won't look at the co That is just where I go with it.
And generally speaking, unless I have a major, major reason outside of you know, the defense, you know, quarterback injury, whatever, or a team that was dealing with a significant amount of injuries for the first like five weeks of the season, if there's specific content text that changes my mind about those numbers, If everything is within the standard deviation of normal, that's where I go, and I don't think about it.
No, I think. But we're also kind of pushing up against the same thing here, aren't we. When you talk about points per drive defense. Yeah, that's that's effort.
Yeah, of course, that's motivation to play and yeah yeah, oh, I just think it captures your point absolutistically, So we're on the same page to some degree.
Here I might be a little bit more extreme with it. But Playwinterwonders dot Com is where you can get your own entry into our pool. What I'm gonna do, if it's okay with you, Dan, I'm going to go through this first half of games, going to talk a little bit about the matchup, and then I'm gonna pick my winner and tell you high, medium, or low confidence because there are forty four games. High I think in this case is I'm putting anywhere between thirty and forty four
points on a game. Yep, Medium, twenty to twenty nine. Low would be anything anything less than twenty. That makes sense totally in Why don't we start on Friday at high noon Eastern time. You gotta get your picks in before this. It's the Bahamas Bowl. They played at Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium in Nassau. The Bahamas aptly direct. It's on ESPN, like most of the games are. Middle Tennessee
at six and six, Toledo at seven and five. At time of recording, or at least the time that I put this dock together, Toledo was favored by about nine and a half points. Here. You gotta lean in this game, Dan.
Hum a little bit. Yeah, I think it's I'm looking here right now. Middle Tennessee lost Cunningham, their quarterback a little bit of go. I think I'm going Toledo here. The spreads at about nine and a half, and I just Middle Tennessee has not been the states the same since losing the quarterback. I'm going Toledo here with I'm going to say medium high comp confidence.
Wow.
Okay, Yeah, the Toledo defense is the best thing in this game. The Middle Tennessee offense is probably the worst thing in this game. So I like that kind of matchup at this point.
I really like Middle Tennessee, especially with the points I would consider betting plus nine and a half here. Okay, I think the tendency with Toledo will be to look at them and say, hey, this was a team that was supposed to contend for the MAC. They didn't. Their defense is still pretty good. They almost knocked off Notre Dame. And Jason Campbell still a candle excuse me? Is still there?
Jason Campbell different football adjacent character, That's true. They won their last three, whereas Middle Tennessee was all over the map. But Middle Tennessee just played a bunch of good teams in the non con I feel like they might be more battle tested and the Toledo thing was sort of underwhelming this year. I expected a lot more from them, and so I wonder if they're gonna go to the Bmahamas more for the vacation the than the football. I'm going to Middle Tennessee Medium, all right.
Middle Tennessee played the number one, twenty nine, one, sixteen, and one twenty five teams in the back half of the season. Got blown out by Western Kentucky, and UH lost to a bad ODU team and beat a bad FAU team and ODU Bowl team that I am also picking out right right, cool, all right, take, I'm taking the defense.
I'm gonna go with it. Just go with it, Dan, Okay, have fun with it. Let's go to the tail Greater Cure Bowl. They played at Exploria Stadium whatever that is, in Orlando, Dan, six pm. Also in the seventeenth this one on the deuce CSPN two. Nor are there ne Illinois the Huskies at nine to four, Coastal Carolina at ten and two. They're about a ten point favorite.
You going shans here? Oh yeah, Grace and McCall healthy and top fifteen ish national offense. Coastal Carolina going against a truly putrid and IUD defense. Sorry, Seawn's offense Top fifteen, terrible defense. Niu, I think it's a wonderful matchup. Yeah, give me Coastal.
I'm going forty four points on Coastal.
Yeah, I would take. I'm taking mid to high thirties. Is where my brain is at this moment.
We put it all on Coastal. Get it out of the way early again, that's the theory front loaded.
I don't have an Orlando recommendation. The last time I tried to recommend restaurants in Orlando, I said, I don't know, go to some chain and I got a lot of flax, so don't. I don't have a recommendation, but I say, look local. I remember Adam amein if you want to tweet it, Adam Aman He's got a place that does an amazing burger, like with pork belly on it or something like that. I didn't text him because I was just doing this not that long ago. So I get
I'll get that name for you. How about that. That's my promise for good eats in Orlando. I've also heard there's an area right by Orlando. I want to say it's Winter Park. I believe apparently some great eating there that's my recommendation.
Let's go to Saturday, this one at eleven am Eastern time. The roofclaim dot com Boca ratone Bowl. This one Saturday, the same of the eighteenth. They played at Fau's Stadium in Boca's. Western Kentucky and app State. App State is favored by three points in this game. I am thrilled for this game. I believe our boy Connor called this out in his latest article out on solid verbal dot com one of the under the radar must watch bowl games of the year. Two good teams, genuinely good teams
in this cycle of college football. I went back and forth on who to pick here because Appstate clearly has more of a track record over the last decade. Now, yep, Western Kentucky has had a dynamic offense. But I haven't seen what the deal is with Zach Kittley, their offensive coordinator. He's hired to be at Texas Tech. Yeah, yeah, to be the new guy at Texas Tech. If he's gonna be there in the bowl game or not, I would
assume no, but maybe I'm wrong. Brian ellis also their co offensive coordinator alongside Kittley, is going to go work with Clay Helton at Georgia Southern, So I don't know if that means they're going to be at all discombobulated a little bit on offense. I know that Bailey Zappi is still planning on playing, even though there is some NFL interest for him. I don't see any way this
game doesn't evolve into a shootout. And I think my thought here is if we're going into a shootout, I sort of like Western to finish that job more than I do app State, Like that's just kind of their style of play, That's how they win games. So if it goes there, I'm I say Western, but I'm not very confident this would be a Western Kentucky pick and low confidence for me.
Do's agree, go with the defense and a shootout, go with the team who can get the stops man. And it's a good matchup for app State in that they are the team that can get the stops and Western Kentucky is the and I don't want is Are they the toff beer?
Right?
Is it the to alcohol? The cause and solution to all of life's problems? The best and worst thing and parts of this game are Western Kentucky?
Right?
Western Kentucky's ability to move the ball, and the worst thing is their lack of ability to stop the ball, especially on the ground. Even even though app State isn't a terrific running team like they have been in previous years, I go with the team where if I expect points, I want the team that can get the stops. I know we talk about taking the points in a shootout, but it's what three three and a half points here?
Confidence wise, it's medium, but I am going to go with the team that doesn't have a putrid part of their defense. So as much as I love WKU and I do think Bailey's Appy is going to get his go for four hundred plus yards, I'm still once again going with app State here to the tune of medium confidence and Ramen Lab, which I've actually been to in the Momen lab Ramen Lab like right name, Yeah, like
good place. It's a good hearty bowl of ram and they've got bow options, you know, bao the little buns. Oh love very good now, very very good.
Yeah. How do you spell that? Bao? If you gave me that, I would have no idea how to pronounce that. It just bow Yeah. The PUBG Mobile new Mexico Bowl PUBG mobile game in case you're wondering, University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, two fifteen on ESPN on Saturday, the eighteenth of December. UTIP at seven and five, Fresno State at nine and three. So here is one of those games that I referenced very top. Kaylen de borr is off to Washington. No, he's not, Oh, Kaylen de bor is.
Jake Haner coming on back. Jake Caner coming on back with the untransfer. Yes, the untransfer. Kaylen de bor gone. Jake Caner was transferring and out, not transferring. I don't know if he's playing.
No, he's close with Jeff Tedford, so he you know, Jeff Tedford getting the job again once again. He's coming decided to come back.
Jake Haner coming back. Have not seen if he's playing in the ball. I'm assuming he will, but we'll see. I don't know if there's any kind of paperwork he needs a file to get back in the game. But to remove the name. Yeah, normally I would go the other way and I would say UTEP because of the turnover. But we followed Fresno all year Dan and they are legitimately a good team. Their opponent, in this case beat just one team inside the S and P Top Top one hundred, excuse me, and that was a one score
win over Old Dominion. I like Old Dominion maybe more than anybody else in college football. But I still think that Fresno's got this one. They're about a two touchdown favorite here. I don't know if I would take that line, but I will probably go forty three points on Fresno.
I was gonna say, I'm going heavy. This is a high Fresno confidence for me. Jake Hayner is practicing. He did apologize for putting his name in the transfer portal UTEP.
He didn't need to apologize, though, did he? Of course?
I mean as the as the leader of the team, right, he is the heartbeat of as most quarterbacks are of successful teams. I get it, I get it where he's just maybe it was an emotional reaction, and he's a dog at heart.
I guess a Fresno State dog, not a Washington Husky type dog. Yeah.
Fresno State UTEP certainly improved, their offense is still kind of a nightmare Fresno State. You mentioned Hayner and jailely cropper guys like that that were very good on offense, they were actually led by their defense ultimately in the way that they got stops. They fielded a top twenty twenty five is defense, as was UTEP. I just think Fresno State's going to be able to find points in more exciting and consistent ways. So I'm going with the Central Valley Zone, the San Joaquin Valley's.
Own Fresno State Bulldogs to.
The tune of high confidence. Also Ty Subvension real quick Foian Fig FOURK and Fig makes a really strong looking burger in the greater Albuquerque area.
Nice. Okay, Yeah, moving on, let's go to the Radiance Technologies Independence bull Report three point thirty ABC. It's UAB, It's b YU. Do you know what Radiance Technologies does? Tell me? I do not. I had no idea, So I went to their website, and on their website, the first thing that you see is an experimental Mobile High Energy Laser man. Anything with laser AH lasers are the best. Yeah. I don't know what they're using the labors for this. This this might be some sort of military thing, But.
Were you good at laser tag? Was that something that you would have considered a strength on your birthday party circuit. As growing up as a kid.
There was a place nearby called Planet Trog. Okay ours was qsar. Yeah, yeah, Planet Trog. I believe I was there. I don't think I had my own birthday there, but I was definitely there for many a birthday party of course, back in the late nineties. And there was a seminal moment in my laser tag care rear where we were out on the floor, you know, just a bunch of teenagers running a muck and there was one guy who
was He was an older gentleman. Let's say, I don't you don't really have a barometer for how old anybody is when you're when you're that young. But he was in earnest, probably about as old as I am now, yeah, forty plus, and he just wasn't good at it, And so I kept trailing him and tagging him and he didn't know it. And then eventually he found me and sort of got me in the corner and like acted as if he was gonna punch me. Yeah, of course,
as one does when playing laser Tag. But I would say significant strength.
I could see that, Yeah, you're you're detail oriented and uh, when you get locked in on something, you go for it.
Shift.
I was, I was very average, but I loved it. I loved I loved Uh. You get to come up with your own nickname. Right, you go bowling, you get to put that in the screen. You go laser tag and you see the screen, the scores come up on the screen, and there was there was old Danny Captain Winkie was my captain. Day spent anyway.
Yeah, all right, Radius Technologies, Independence, Bull U A B B y U B YU favored by seven and a half. We know a lot about BYU, don't we. We do. I've been talking about them all year long. UAB has been a good story, hasn't gotten a whole lot of airtime from us. They had the Fuke loss to Rice, which isn't great, but their other three losses were to Georgia, Liberty and UTSA, which aren't bad losses. No, by any stretch.
They've got a solid defense. The numbers that I keep have this one as about by U minus four, which I don't I don't necessarily buy that, And that came down from what seven and a half. Well, the line is still seven and a half. But I'm saying that. I keep says yeah, sorry, I just don't buy that. Okay, So I think I'm on BYU pretty heavy here. Maybe like thirty five.
We've got another duff beer matt up the cause and solution. BYU's offense maybe the best thing in this game. But Uab's defense also strong, especially upfront against the run, which is not where BYU is especially strong moving the ball. But the worst thing is BYU's defense. I'm going with defense here. I don't believe Kolonie Sataki in interviewing for the Oregon job, is any sort of distraction he is at BYU. It's his alma mater. I'm going with UAB.
I'm going with the defense here. Ty a regional advantage right playing in Louisiana, not a flying across the country.
Whatever.
I think defense does travel short and far. I'm going with UAB here with medium amount of confidence points. Strawn's Strawn's str awns. It's a diner with amazing looking pies. Get them, get them, all right, get them. Lending Tree Bowl at Hancock Whitney Stadium in Mobile, Alabama, five forty five on the eighteenth on ESPN it's Eastern Michigan at seven and five, it's Liberty at seven and five. Liberty, for context is about an eight and one half point favorite.
How do you feel about Liberty neutral? I mean, they run the hell out of the ball, even though Malik Willis is the one who has gotten the attention for that program. But I'm fine with Liberty winning this game. It's another favorite. I understand that I'm picking, but Eastern Michigan's defense and their schedule too. You look at what Eastern Michigan like. This is how they finish their schedule strong, and they lost games. They lost to Ohio, a bad Ohio team, and they got killed by a bad Central
Michigan team. It's just one of those things where the MAC has like a bunch of five hundred teams and a lot of them don't play good defense or like they most MAC teams do something disastrously bad. And what Eastern Michigan does is they just get pushed around constantly upfront against the run, and so I think it's a bad matchup. So I'm going Liberty with high confidence.
Yeah. One and twentieth in the ESP plus on the defensive side for Eastern Michigan yeah, and I think you're right. Stopping the rushing attack. Stopping Malik Willis if he decides to be the rushing attack is going to pose an obvious issue here. Bill Connelly, for what it's worth, has Eastern Michigan at four point nine second order wins, so basically a five and seven team masquerading as seven and five. I don't see how it's close. I also think that
Malik Willis is going to be motivated here. I don't know if he has any designs on going to the NFL. Right, it was sort of an underwhelming season for him with twelve picks and obviously five losses for Liberty. I think he will be motivated here to come out and put some big numbers up. So high confidence on Liberty. I might consider going Liberty minus eight and a half if you're looking to actually wager some real money. But this could be like a forty two job for me here on Liberty. Fair enough.
Yeah, I'm going pretty high here. By the way, Felix is for fried fish. Felix is in the Greater Mobile area.
Let's go to the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl presented by Stifle. Can you look this up? STI f e l Okay, look that up while I go through the rest of diversified Global wealth management and investment banking company focused on building relationships that help individuals, families, And I'm not clicking the link. What does that mean? It's investment banking, all right? Well, they played at SOFI Stadium, Yeah, in Inglewood, California. So I'm told seven thirty ABC, Utah State. The Aggie's had
a great year. You're one, Lake Anderson ten and three. Won the conference in resounding fashion over San Diego State. They're up against Oregon State. Oregon State seven and a half point favorite. Here, Dan, Yeah, so what we have in this matchup is an amazing offensive line, I believe a Joe Moore Award nominated offensive line with the Beaves. They run the hell out of the ball, and that's the best thing going in this game is Oregon State's ability.
BJ Baylor has been the big name for the Beaves running the ball, and Utah State's defense against the pass is actually the worst thing in this game. I don't know if that comes to play a major role, as Oregon State is not a huge passing team, rely a lot on transfers and tight ends in the passing game. But yeah, Oregon State is in good position to win this game. And defensively, by the way, as you look at I mean, these are two defenses that are not
so good. Oregon State one hundred and one in points per drive, Utah State much stronger, thirty seven. I'm actually going to go Utah State here. I'm licking my wounds from picking against the Aggies in the Mound West Championship game. I think Oregon State is good, but I still think when the team with the worst defense is and didn't Utah State beat Wazoo to open the season. Yep, yeah, I think they're I think they're a pretty good team. So I'm going with Utah State. Well, the Blake Anderson
story has been incredible. Yeah, in his first year at Utah State. I mean I said it before, I'll say it again. But abbreviated schedule last year in twenty twenty, so maybe not apples to apples here, but this is a one in five team last year mm hmm, he comes on. They got to ten wins. They pounded a ranked San Diego State team that maybe was licking its
own wounds from they had a COVID issue. Right. I don't know how much that factored in or not, but even still, forty six to thirteen in a championship game is a big deal. The sp plus says that ten and three Utah State is more like the seven and five team. I hear you do whatever you want with that information. But I like Oregon State here. They had a shot to win the PAC twelve North. They had two really bad losses, otherwise they might have done it. I think I favor the Beavers here in a tasty
little matchup, like kind of like the Plucky Bowl. Okay, I like them to run the hell out of the ball here, all right.
I have lots of La food recommendations, so you can tweet at me, especially if you are going for this game and want good food, and tell me where in La you are, because La is a very big place. I will tell you on the west side of La Pizzana p I z Z A n A for pizza and we'll stick with that theme. And Apollonia's Pizza Justin and Apollonias does a fantastic job, amazing transcendent square slices at Apollonia's Square Slices Squares Justin dalyone a Mini La
pizza genius. I'm just telling you right now, I really do look up to Justin does great things at Apollonias.
I'm not kidding.
Do you know I've talked to him a couple of times. Yeah, when I've been out there. He's very guarded, ty, very guarded with his pizza and fermentation and secrets for getting that real caramelized crispy cheese edge on his squares. Very guarded, but amazing. All Right, that's such a specific that's such a specific recommendation. But yeah, Appollonia's it's sort of mid city in La. I want to say, well, sure, I forget which straight, but that's my recommendation.
I'm medium on Oregon State, by the way, maybe like twenty six twenty seven medium as well. Yep. Let's go to the RNL Carriers New Orleans Bowl Caesar's super Dome in New Orleans. Nine to fifteen ESPN. Again, this is the last game of the day on the eighteenth. It is an interesting matchup, an interesting matchup. Louisiana favored by six over Marshall. You know the deal with Louisiana. Louisiana
went twelve and one. They beat app State twice. Their only loss of the year was to Texas all the way back in Week one, and we've talked a lot about them, if only because their coach left after the championship game to go on over to Florida. Yeah, coach the championship game, not hanging around for this one again. Normally I would ding that team in a situation like this where a coach left, But there are so many veterans on Louisiana that I really struggled with is this
thing gonna disintegrate or not? Right? It's also kind of a home game for them, right, playing in the Superdome sort of? Yeah, sort of. Lafayette is not New Orleans, But yeah, I am gonna go Marshall outright here. I'm gonna stick to the formula. I don't think the seven and five records should fool you. This is a really good team on both sides of the ball. This game's gonna offer I think a really nice mix of styles as well. Because Marshall's more of a passing team, Louisiana
is much more of a running team. I got Marshall in the upset. I think coaching maybe makes the difference in a close game and Louisiana's played in a bunch of close games. Is here if you go back and look so without Napier that that scares me a little bit. The spread is less than a touchdown, so I think Vegas sort of feels it too right. I'm inclined to go Marshall plus the six if you're a better and maybe Marshall to the tune of ten confidence points here. Altt,
you really like Marshall here? I do?
Oh man, I like Louisiana big. I know it's the new coach thing, but I thought that was all handled really well by Billy and Apier, like it was a very direct It was as well as one could have handled it.
Right.
He took the job. But he's saying I'm coaching out the year, the regular season year. I'm not coaching in the bowl game. But I thought the vibes were strong, there was an internal promotion.
At head coach.
I just I think things are okay. I think there's an excitement still around the Rage and Cajun's. And while I think Marshall is good, little two turnover prone at quarterback in Grant Wells, who has been a really good quarterback and wasn't turnover prone, but this year he was, and the turnover margin overall like vastly favors Louisiana. I know things are random with turnover, but since the defense is a relatively even I'm gonna roll with team I just think is better. And that's Louisiana.
So we disagree, we disagree. I understand it. I understand it. But you know you gotta have a code. I have a code here that I'm going by.
Yep, go in Marshall, all right, should mention eat literally anywhere in New Orleans? You will do great literally anywhere. But if you want something specific, I was recommended by a friend.
Who is from New Orleans.
Bevy, which is not in like the main French quarter area. Bevy seafood amazing, Poe boys.
Really really strong. Let's go to Monday, the twentieth of December. Yep, Myrtle Beach Bawl, presented by Tax Act. Tax Act is getting in on the game here. I think they sponsor about three different games in some capacity. Really, Okay, that's where your taxes are going right there. Yep, sponsor in the Myrtle Beach. But you ever been to Myrtle Beach. I have not no been in South Carolina. I never a Myrtle Beach. I've been there. I played golf there,
bad end many years ago. Nice, good time, would go back. It was a good time. We stayed at a house that had a weird owl painting in it, and it was one of those deals where the eyes sort of tracked you wherever you went in the house, of course, and we actually tried to buy it off the owner. Why as like a fantasy baseball trophy or something. Oh nice, I like that. I we joked, We joked that when we weren't there, the owl came out of the painting
and flew around the house. It was just they had that vibe to it, you know, right of course, like Vego and Ghostbusters too. They wouldn't sell to us, said the painting had too much intrinsic value. They wouldn't. They wouldn't sell us the other everybody has a price tie. We tried you low balld, we tried, couldn't get it. And this game is in Coastal Stadium, right, it's in brook Stadium, the Teal Field and Conway. Yeah, yep. Two thirty ESPN Old Dominion six and six, getting nine and
a half against Tulsa. Tulsa also six and six, Dan, Where are you at with this game? Oh?
Do you finished the season strong? To just get here?
Right?
They lost five straight to Liberty, Buffalo, UTEP, Marshall, Western Kentucky, all totally decent teams. Maybe not Buffalo, but otherwise totally decent. And then one five straight Louisiana Tach I mean, against five very bad teams. So I don't really have a good gauge on ODU both of these teams. It was ODU and Tulsa, Right, Tulsa finished the season relatively strong. I think I'm going with the clearly stronger defense here,
which I think is Tulsa's, especially against the run. I just don't like the old dominion offense, especially through the air. So yeah, I'm going Tulsa here with high confidence.
This is one of those motivation and coach games for me. Okay, I'm with you on Tulsa. First off, Odeu's had a good year. Odi. You didn't play in twenty twenty Ritney Ronnie was hired. He didn't play a game. He came out early part of the year. They got boat raced in a bunch of games against teams that to be fair. Were better than them, hm, but it took a while to get this thing going. They want a bunch of games late. That's how they got to the bowl game.
So they got to six and six. I think that in and of itself is an accomplishment for Ricky Ronnie Tulsa's Jekyl and Hyde to me, man, you know, they they almost beat Oklahoma State in Cincinnati. They were within seven of Ohio State with three minutes to play. They beat SMU, which is a nice win, and then also they lost to Navy and UC Davis.
Hey hey, hey, hey, let's put some respect on Dan Hawkins and the fight maggies of UC Davis. A lot of cows there. Tulsa's also very mistake prone. Their turnover margin is one to eighteen nationally, and they recently lost a bunch of assistants to TCU, including their defensive coordinator. They lost their line coach to USC had a few guys enter the portal. My sense is that Tulsa may only care about the big games and they may not give a damn about the others. I think ODU is
thrilled to be here. They're thrilled, pomped to be in Myrtle Beach. I don't think Tulsa gives a damn. So here's one of those motivation games for me.
I go, oh to you. I don't think twice about it. I'm going, oh, tou medium confidence. I might consider the plus nine and a half.
Wow, Okay, I'm going You've convinced me a little bit. Tulsa's recent Bowl history isn't great. They lost barely to Mississippi State in twenty twenty, lost the Independence Bowl in a shootout in twenty fifteen, same coach Philip Montgomery, and they beat Central Michigan killed Central Michigan in twenty sixteen. So in terms of man, I don't know. In terms of motivation, I'm gonna go. I'm still going to Tulsa here. I'm still good here. I think they're the stronger team.
I think they have more ways to win. So give me the Golden Hurricane.
Where do you eat in Myrtle Beach? Do you know?
I do know Myrtle Beach? Well, I have I looked up Conway because that's more specific. Rivertown, very solid looking Rivertown, Rivertown differently Rivertown, or maybe it's a Riverton is how maybe I don't know how to pronounce it, but it looks like very good Americans. Different, you know, different directions you can go with the menu.
Tuesday, December twenty first the famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Albertson Stadium in Boise. You've been to Boise? You love Boise? Where do you eat in Boise?
So I haven't been to Boise in quite some time, but I looked it up and there is a great looking breakfast place, maybe with a bit of a Southern inspiration. Obviously, I'm not going to say you're getting authentic Southern breakfast in Boise, Idaho, but you know you can get great ingredients whatever. Tupoulo Honeyolo honey, a great breakfast option. Good song too, good song all right?
Three point thirty ESPN Kent State versus Wyoming, Wyoming favored by four Craig Bowl, notably the guy whose head is the shape of the oregone right.
You know, I was really hoping, and look, Oregon hasn't hired a coach at the time of this recording. I was like, maybe maybe they could get I was ready to do a photoshop of Dave Randa's perfectly smooth head. Maybe also don't. Nobody can get quite on the Craig Bowl level in terms of shape and that Oregon O the middle of the O. But I was hoping for an Aranda photoshop.
Who knows. Craig Bowll notably brought over Tim Paulasek from Iowa at the start of the year to come over and make the offense less predictable. The offense is better than last season, but it's very mistake prone. Yeah, and there's almost no explosion, so there's a little bit of Iowa in there, a little bit of Iowa on that explosion side. But they did throttle Utahs State on the road late in the year to get Bowl eligible, so
there's potential. They're not a bad team. You just don't know when you're gonna get the good Wyoming right Maybe it'll be this game because Kent State's defense has given up a lot of points this season. They played a crazy high tempo. I think we see points in this game. I wouldn't want to touch the points bread it's four right now, because I think this is a situation where the last team with the ball is the one that's gonna end up winning. I probably go Wyoming, but I
don't have a good read on this one. I know some folks are high on Kent State, but I'm just I didn't see it in that game in the championship game last week. So I think I go Wyoming, but maybe like eight points. I'm not confident at all.
Boyse twenty seven hundred plus feet above sea level, Wyoming like eleven thousand feet above sea level. That's not true, but they are the highest. Anytime you watch a Wyoming game in Laramie, you're bound more often than not to hear the highest above sea level FBS stadium, town whatever in America.
And so give me Wyoming is.
Pulling into the elevation station. Pulling into the elevation station. Ty And as much as I love Ken State's offense, their defense is as as bad as the Kent State offense is good. Wyoming had that stretch in the middle of the season that was kind of a disaster. I think they scored three points against New Mexico. I want to say so maybe they were dealing with key injuries or something then, but I'm both with Wyoming here. I'm well with Wyoming to cover this game. Low confidence, yea,
because Wyoming is too all over the place. For me to feel anything strongly about them. Low confident in the Cowboys, but high confident in two below. Honey for breakfast.
Absolutely, let's stay on the twenty first. My favorite game of the cycle. Really it is. I told actually, you're consistent because I mentioned this to you a few episodes. I know, I don't know if anything had changed, but continue, I'm in man. Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl. Yeah, you like smoothies.
I make a lot of them for my almost three year old, and he's into them. They're fine. You know, when John bajuice was a thing I would go get. I think peach pleasure. Peach pleasure was my my my flavor of choice.
But no, I don't go out of my way for smoothies anymore. No. Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl. Frisco also having an outsized impact on this Bowl season. We'll talk about that in a little bit, of course. Toyota Stadium is the site of this game seven thirty ESPN. It is UTSA the Roadrunners. Do you have the sound? Just out of curiosity? Not anymore.
I replaced it with December to remember, so that's more of a catch all Yeah.
UTSA twelve and one. They are about a field goal favorite. Here Against San Diego State, san Diego State went eleven and two. As I said, my favorite game of the cycle, in part because UTSA may be the story of the year in college football. Been incredible. You've got a root with your heart here. We got to speak from the chest, and speaking from the chest, I love the UTSA Roadrunner story. I love what Jeff Trailer did this year. I love that he's coming back. I hope they continue to build
this thing. They knocked off Western Kentucky for the second time this season to win Conference USA in a shootout a week ago. Meanwhile, San Diego State got drilled in the Mount West Championship game against Utah State. Now, they were down some guys because of the COVID outbreak, right, so how much did that factor in? Probably some? They got drilled. San Diego State does not normally give up forty six points, so I kind of take that with a grain of salt here. But I love the UTSA story.
They've only been to two previous bowl games, in two thousand and sixteen and then I guess twenty twenty. Both were close losses. I take their game against UAB from earlier in the year as sort of a poc approof of concept, as we say, okay, of course in the corporate world, that they can score against a better defense. The game's up in Frisco, which is like north of Dallas. I think folks will show out for them in this game because it's a big deal. It's a big deal
for UTSA to get to a bowl game. If you want a really deep cut, I would also say that San Diego State is oh and to all time in bowl games in the state of Texas. Okay, I don't have a really strong lean. I just like UTSA, So I'm going to utsa medium confidence. Let's say twenty points.
I'd like to issue apology. Tupelow Honey's a chain across many many states. I retract. I retract my blow Honey recommendation for Boise State. I'm gonna say Tony's Pizza. Tony's pizza looks very pizza. Tony's, I'll be very specific, Pizzeria Teatro, great looking Neapolitan inspired pizza in Boise, Idaho. Tony's Pizzeria Tatro's. I retract critic of this show the food that the guy that people. I've never come across one in a state or live near one. I'm sorry, this is me being ignorant.
To give them food wrecks. I know, what do you recommend for a good chicken place? Dan? How about Popeyes? That's all true, this is all tie, this is all uh. I deserve it all. I hear you.
But I found I corrected my ways, did I not? Within a matter of minutes.
Also, there is a tupul of honey in Frisco, and I was like, wait a minute, wait minute, there it is. It happens, happens mashed.
By the way, I'm pretty sure cocktail bar, good looking food in the Frisco area is your recommendation there for this game. The best thing this is another Duff Beer game. The best thing is the San Diego State defense. The worst thing san Diego State offense. I'm going utsa, yeah boy, yeah, have the juice. They're favored by a little bit. I just I've been hurt. I've been burned by San Diego
State looking back to that Utah State game. I'm gonna stay consistent with how I feel looking back and how out of control that got san Diego State on the road against the UTSA team. Look, you're right, it was. It was out of character the way that they lost to North Texas big time. I think it gets fixed. I think this is a team with juice. So give me the road Runners here.
All right, Damn, we got eleven more games to go. Let's eleven more to go. Let's do it. Come on, let's go. Let's go to Wednesday, December the twenty second, the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, Yeah, M and G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas, eight pm on ESPN. It is Miszoo at six and six, is Army at eight and three? Army is favored? Hmmm in this game, Daniel, interesting, what do you think.
So Army's defense, weirdly enough, is the best thing in this game, especially against the run, which is where we know Miszoo likes to make their own.
Hey, that's not a phrase.
And the worst thing in this game is Missoo's defense, though it's not as if Army's past defense is all that strong either. I'm going with Miszoo here. I'm going with Miszoo, and it's I don't like going against service academies in bowl games. We saw what who did Army just absolutely lay the wood against Was it Houston two three four years ago?
Uh? I have to go back and check. But go back and look, I remember the game what I believe it was Hugh.
So it pains me, it hurts me because Missoo's defense. No, I'm one with the defense. I'm one with army here. If I'm talking myself into Missoo, that's dumb. I'm going with army here. I know I'm going very favorite heavy with my picks. I'm going medium confidence in army here. And by the way, the place to eat in this is Fort Ware is this game? This is in Fort Worth. Are two places I mentioned one of them at the top. Goldies looks incredible, the number one barbecue place in Texas
per Texas Monthly. Whatever strength you put on that rankings, and I quote, they trust the meat and the smoke more than an arsenal of seasonings. That attention doesn't waver when it comes to sides, especially the peppery cheese grits and the mustard heavy pork hash. And then they are culinary. There are culinary surprises such as the nupon in thousays Laotian sausage. Take a chunk mash it into a bit of sticky rice and dunk the combo into spicy sour
jow salm sauce. Your eyes will open wide as you gaze at the new horizons of Texas barbecue.
Give that person the pulitzer who wrote that. I think Daniel Vaughan, who is the Who's a nice dude. I've met him. He with the barbecue editor for Texas Monthly. Good Lord, I'm Starr. That's Goldie is the other play.
Another place in the top ten is Panther City in the Fort Worth area, very very strong food area, fort Worth, Texas.
This is the Underthink Express Bowl to me two the Underthink Express. I'm the conductor of the Underthink Express. In this one rare instance, Army runs the crap out of the ball. Yeah, and Maszoo is not good as a rush defense totally. They're not good at it. They're not good at preventy big plays on the ground either, horribling. Army's defense, as you said, not bad. They're above average, if not pretty good at stopping the run. Massoo's crazy
one dimensional with Tyler Batty. I believe Tyler Batty at time of recording is playing in this game. But I also saw that Maszoo is now having an open competition at quarterback, which is never a good sign going into a bowl game, especially against the Service academy. You mentioned it, Service academies. Say what you want about the Service academies, they are usually very disciplined and to some extent difficult
to prepare for. Maybe not so much in a bowl setting where you've got more time and more build up, but definitely on a week two week basis, if you're playing Army or Navy, it's just so different from most of what you would prepare for otherwise that it can present a unique challenge. Hmm. If you're not all on the same page, it's problematic going into a bowl game like this. So I'm gonna Army. I'm with you. I'm interested to see if the line goes down too. Right now,
they're favored by three and a half. I would expect folks are going to look at this game and say, wait, an SEC team against the Service Academy, and then they're going to put their money on the Zoo. And it's at that moment that I will take Army plus whatever. I would love to take Army getting points here.
Tyler Bady is playing. By the way, the last I saw is he wanted to play. And you're right, missoo up front, they just get pushed around exclusively, exclusively. Yeah, they're not good. Soeh, medium confidence. I'm with you on Army.
All right, let's go back to Frisco. Dan, back to Frisco the Frisco Football Classic, also at Toyota Stadium. Also, we really must preview this. It's the fun fact of Bowl season. I know they made it up. They made it a literally made it up. They made it up. There were more Bowl eligible teams then they knew what to do with and so ESPN and you know whoever runs the Bowl thing, they just added it willy nilly like a week ago. How can we not talk about that.
I'm with you. It's limited edition one of one Frisco Bowl, Frisco Football Classic excuse me ephemoral ephemeral Bowl plus Snapchat three thirty ESPN December the twenty third. Texas the mean Green at six and six. Miami Ohio also at six and six. Miami Ohio is favored by four points. North Texas started one in six, they finished five and zero. They did beat UTSA. It was Utsa's only loss as you said earlier, the schedule was harder earlier in the year.
But they just they honestly didn't play well. Didn't matter who they played, they didn't play well. I don't really think they're that good if and being honest with you here, I don't know where that utsa win came from. Kudos to them for pulling it off. Miami Ohio at least you can say, is okay. Right, They're okay. There's a lot of big play potential in this game, which may make it very watchable. But I kind of think North Texas is mud. They're just not good, So I consider
taking the minus four. I don't know much about either of these teams, so I'm going out in a limb here, But I'm saying Miami Ohio high confidence, like thirty two points.
I'm right there with you. I'm going Miami as well. You know, if I've taken a dog yet, this is really bad. I'm going Miami Ohio to eke this one out. North Texas is not very good. They just they've struggled, especially throwing the ball, which is very strange to say by the Seth Latrell team. So I'm going, God, you know what, I'm going I'm anti Mac though, so you know what, I'm gonna go North Texas here, I'm going North Texas. I think they're gonna get their act together.
This is the game I think is Miami's. Miami's defense is better, North Texas is. Yeah, North Texas is slightly worse defensively, but I'm still gonna go with the Me and Green here. This is my exception game. Also go with the Aussie grind for a great Australian breakfast in Frisco, Texas.
Brecky Brecky Union Home Mortgage, Gasparria Ball, Yeah, Gasperilla, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, seven pm ESPN. It's UCF eight and four Florida six and six Florida favored by a touchdown. We discussed it earlier the Gasparilla Pirate Festival to parade a host of related community events held in Tampa, Florida, almost every year since nineteen oh four. Yeah, got too. Florida teams in this game, perhaps very fitting, got the Pirate ship in the one one end zone of Raymond
James Stadium. So it's it's thematic here. They're committing to the bit. I like it, don't even think about touching the points right here. Just don't do it. I have no idea if Florida gives it damn at all. If they care, and that is, if they care, they should be able to handle UCF in my view. Okay, but got an interim coach, They got some guys who are going to probably opt out. I haven't seen it yet by but kyer Elam, Zachary Carter mm hmm. Jacob Copeland's
already in the transfer portal a receiver. Yep. I don't think UCS all that good. But the counterpoint is that they don't really need to be to go toe to toe with Florida the way they've finished out. I'm very mixed on this game. My hunch is to go Florida high confidence, but I recognize openly that that's a pretty big risk.
I'm going Florida high confidence because I think the talent is still there. I think there's a sense of relief that they're moving on, that they know who their next coach is going to be. And maybe this is when dudes may perhaps younger dudes are playing especially hard to impress the new staff in a game situation, UCF still obviously relying on a not a transfer on a backup quarterback.
Of course, after Dylan Gabriel out for the season, now into the portal have not been able to throw the ball worth a damn no back half of the season. So now I'm going Florida here. I'm going with Florida here to establish dominance in this matchup of interstate squads.
I've been workshopping a theory that I may consider adding depending on how this Bowl season goes. Because, as you know, there are a bunch of schools with new coaches now most of them. Most of them aren't in bold, but the ones that are, I am curious to see if there is any kind of motivation factor in hopes of impressing the new coach, trying to get on the board early before twenty twenty two on that depth chart. I don't know if there's any way to back that up,
but that's just where I'm at. Okay, let's go to Friday. It's Christmas Eve. It's the easy post, easy post. What's that, don't know? You tell me TI, easy Post?
Hawaii Bowl Software Company, Okay, simple Shipping API, Create label tool.
Great, Yeah. Clarence TC Ching Athletics Complex in Honolulu, Hawaii, eight pm Christmas Eve on ESPN. Memphis at six and six, Hawaii at six and seven. We talked about this one earlier. I think we feel similarly here. Memphis has been all over the map this year, all over the mat. They beat Mississippi State, they lost to Temple, they beat SMU, barely lost to UTSA Hawaii. Hawaii has played well at home. They knocked off Fresno when Fresno came to town back
in week five. But then there's this tweet from Mark Delucci of SFGate dot com. Quote significant questions about the state of the University of Hawaii at Manoa football program under head coach Todd Graham. Players I spoke with accused Graham of verbal abuse, rampant favoritism, and killing their love of football. Yeah, nothing to be taken lightly. Javon Cordero day day Hunter are transferring datae Hunters the leading rusher. This does not seem like a great scenario for Hawaii,
even in a home bowl game. Dan, Yeah, so I think I go Memphis.
Oh man, that's a long plane ride to Paradise, and can get distracted by going to Hawaii. I think I'm still going with the Warriors here. I can't trust Memphis. What is the line at time of speaking? What is that the Vegas evaluation? Even though that we're going with confidence.
Memphis by three and a half, I'm going to Hawaii low confidence. That's a long way road game. That's a that's like a ten hour flight, isn't it at least? Yeah, it's like six five and a half six from La. I'm gonna stay medium confidence and I'm gonna go Memphis. All right, I'm going low Hawaii. But if twenty is my threshold, this is like nineteen or twenty, it's right, it's it's a risk. You got to take a risk in a confidence pool. Memphis does not have a good defense.
I just I'm not there. Sorry. All right, Let's go back to the tax Act Chamelea Bowl tax Act again getting in on the action here. It's where your taxes go. This one's on Christmas Day in the Crampton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. By the way, where do you eat in Honolulu? Do you know?
I don't have a place. I apologize. I'll look it up as you're describing this game.
Find a nice fusion restaurant out there. That's what I ate at they.
Don't need to fuse. It's already all there. Hawaii is a melting pot of cultures. It is in and of itself a fusion culture Tax Act.
Camellia Bowl Christmas Day. Yeah, play this one again a mobile two thirty ESPN. Georgia State seven and five, Ball State six and six. I was real high on ball State going into twenty twenty one. They had a good campaign in twenty twenty. This year, the bottom kind of fell out. Ture Bill Connolly says they were a four and a half win team that somehow got to six. This is Georgia State's third straight bowl game. I think
they win this one hand handily. I am on Georgia State here, high confidence, and I would probably consider jumping on that three and a half. It may come down before kickoff, but I feel pretty good about Georgia State here, as do I. Ball State is terrible at efense.
I just don't think they're very good. Georgia State across the board. They're just better than Ball State. They run the ball, they stop the pass. I'm just yeah, I'm going with Georgia State here by you know a couple of touchdowns, high confidence and as you are saying, Dan is right. You can eat a wishbone and have some delicious cage and seafood.
Great.
Also, Goofy is the name of a diner and cafe in Honolulu that looks really good.
Great. Yeah, that's it, Goofy Cafe and dine. Go to Monday twenty seventh. Let's go up the Ford Field in Detroit. Dan, go on again. I've got Rex eleven o'clock on ESPN, Western Michigan at seven and five, Nevada at eight and four. Okay, let's talk. Let's talk about a good matchup here. Novada, Nevada losing a coach, yep. Nevada is the more consistent team on paper, especially with Carson Strong at the helm. He had a great season forty two hundred passing yards,
thirty six touchdowns. This is a pass happy team and they are definitely more consistent than Western Michigan. However, the venerable J. Norvelder coach left went to Colorado State. Their defensive coordinator is leaving for Wazoo. I think we're going to be in a situation here where Carson Strong, Romeo Dubbs, and Cole Turner all opt out for the Bowl Game.
In a scenario like that, if those guys are out, I'm on our guy, Caleb Bellobie Man low confidence, low confidence, but I might consider bumping it up if all three of those guys for Nevada are out. Kind of a home game for Western. We liked Western a lot going into the year. Maybe it didn't quite materialize the way we thought, But I just think external factors here keep me on Western instead of Nevada. Otherwise I go Nevada. Nevada is favored by a touchdown, but I'm going Western. Ah.
This is another one of those situations where the Western defense scares me. They are one of the absolute worst big play defense allowing situations in the country, and Nevada, when healthy and when operating at full capacity, would be a team able to take advantage of that, presumably, But Nevada doesn't run the ball that well, and you're saying they are expecting opt outs. Western Michigan certainly much more of a home game in Detroit than than what Nevada has. Situationally,
I am still gonna go Nevada. I think there are more talented team, and Western's defense scares me enough that I'm going with the wolf pack here. Yeah, I'm going with the wolf pack here. Load a medium somewhere in there. Twelve fourteen points confidence Sister Pie for standard pies, great looking pies at Sister Pie, and then Pie Si like sci very creative pizzas the greater Detroit area Pie Pi. You said Detroit's a strong food area.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, very strong food. All right, it is.
It is very diverse, especially with Middle Eastern options. Yeah, you can do very very well in Detroit eating.
What about Annapolis, Dan, have you ever been to Annapolis? No? No, I have not, have you. I think I've been through Annapolis, but it's been a while. In their friend Tim Murray, isn't he somebody who used to live in Annapolis? I think so. Probably he's big in the DMV. He knows all about the DMV. Okay, the Military Bowl presented by Perroton. It's not Peloton, it's Parathon peerat N. I had to look this up. Their slogan is do the can't be done, which is a little overthought. That's a little of the
overthink express on that. I'm not gonna lie, right, but a big company twenty two thousand employees twenty seventeen was founded. Specialties include space intelligence, cyber defense, homeland security, and health. They got there towing a bunch of different pools there, Okay, Perroton, Boston College versus East Carolina BC is a three and a half point favorite. There's six and six. East Carolina is seven and five two thirty on the twenty seventh on ESPN. I like Boston College here. I like ACU.
I like I. I like the ECU story more than I like ECU. Okay, I like what Mike Houston has done. He's been awesome. Got the program to seven wins, got the extension right, mm hmmm. I I just think it's a different BC team with Phil Jerkovic, who is coming back next season. I don't know if you saw that announcement, but I didn't say that. Yeah, came back from injury this season and they were marginally better. I thought they're going to benefit from three extra weeks of practice here.
So I like BC. I'm going high confidence.
I like ECU here. I think it's a motivation thing. Their defenses aren't so different. If you're b C, certainly you're happy to have your COVID back for this game and beyond, but you get ECU and Annapolis Maryland as
a bold destination. No disrespect to Anapolis Maryland, but you're comparing it against you know, Southern States are going out west something warm, and I just don't know if you're you're up for this game, but you might be up for the Iron Roost for breakfast at Iron Rooster, which looks like a really nice breakfast transition, thank you very much. But no, the best thing in this game is Boston College is defense. The worst thing is ECU on defense,
in particular their run defense. But I don't know if Boston College is built to take advantage. I know they really ran the ball well early on middle of the season at garwo action. Yeah, I'm going to ECU here. They finished strong. They went four or five, including a win over Tis Memphis Tigers. The Memphis it was kind of a toss up loss to Houston.
I'm going with ECU here.
My guy Holton Naylor's all right, whatever, Yeah, it's go low confidence, low confidence.
I'm BC hot confidence, man, I'll go home. Okay, let's go to the tickets. Smarter Birmingham Bull Tuesday, December the twenty eighth. They play it at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama, twelve o'clock ESPN Houston against Auburn Dan. This is a great matchup, interesting matchup. Houston eleven in two, Auburn six and six. They're favored by three. I haven't seen yet if Roger McCreery, the corner for Auburn, is gonna play in the game or not. There's also been some speculation.
I mean, we may have resolution on this by the time Monday rolls around in this podcast actually drops, but there has been some some rumors out there in the Twitter sphere about Brian Harson and that Oregon job. Yeah, I think it's relatively low but yeah, so you know, I don't know what happens there. I guess we can revisit if there is a need to, but just something to keep in the back of your mind. We're recording again on Friday the tenth. We may have an answer
on that Oregon situation before long. But I either way, either way here, it's low confidence for me because I don't trust either team. I don't really trust either team. I do question Auburn's motivation though, I wonder if it's a letdown thing, like who cares about Houston? We could have beaten Alabama. Sure, I still think I'm on Auburn. I still it's low confidence. I still think I'm on Auburn here with like nine points. Yeah.
The strongest thing this game is Houston's defense, especially against the pass, which is not what Auburn has been doing well as of late with TJ.
Finley.
Yeah, just everything involved in passing, passing it, stopping the pass has not been Auburn's thing this year. I'm gonna go with Houston. I think Houston. If we're gonna say who's up for this game, who's got a defense? I think check check Houston.
They are.
They are the team I'm rolling with, just like I'm rolling with. Carrigan's a great option that has a rooftop situation that built a bunch of beer taps into like an old jeep to a retro jeep. I think, just experientially, let's speak in my language, man, I think you would like Carrigan's ty good looking fries.
Send me the link. Can you slack me the link? Yeah? Absolutely, I can.
I want to see this in Birmingham, right in Birmingham, Alabama. I've driven through Birmingham, I've been Rashingham.
I like it. Yeah, seems like a cool place.
Got some friends in Birmingham. Here you go, Ty, Here's what Kerrigan's is working with. We're doing this long free commercial for what reason unclear. Kind of a gastro pub feel.
Oh yeah, look at that. Oh I like that. I like up your alley? Do you want to go to this game?
I suddenly do. How long of a drive is hit from the Chicago burbs?
All right, you look that up. We're gonna move on here. Let's go to the Serve Pro First Responderbowl Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas three point fifteen pm Eastern time again on the twenty eighth of December. Now air Force nine and three Louisville Louisville six and six, Louisville favored by about a point and a half. That's kind of all over the map right now, that's jumping around. We got Scott's sadderfield, who is four to zero in Bowl games.
It was announced that he is returning as Louisville's coach and Mailie Cunningham also announced that he is coming back next year, so he's gonna be on board for this game. Air Force Dan air Force is pretty good. This is a pretty good air Force team. It's a good team. Yeah. I agree. They beat Boise, they beat Nevada. They're seventeen points away if you add it up from being twelve to oh, I am going air Force. I am on air Force here because they run, run, run, and that's
just not a good matchup for Louisville. So I'm saying air Force like medium confidence, man, like twenty seven points somewhere in that neighborhood.
Cheese at Bowl champion air Force from twenty nineteen, Sir, I don't know who they beat in twenty In the twenty nineteen Cheese at Ball Wazoo, they beat a real team, Okay, I'm going with air Force as well as dogs. I think they're gonna be difficult for Louisville, who just the season to be over after the way they lost to
Kentucky and the deficiencies they have. I know they had to like fire one of the like the code defensive coordinator midyear on some was it stalking something like that Court Dennison who was at Oregon before.
So I don't know.
I think things are tumultuous still that if you have to announce that your coach is coming back, it's not great momentum heading into the off season. Air Force, especially their defense is tough to hang with, and you get to pick against a Louisville defense that struggled for wide stretches of the season. So yeah, I'm going with the Falcons here, just like I would go to Norri the Nori hand roll bar. It'd be very easy to sit back and say, go to Pecon Lodge, go to Cadillac Barbecue.
You're in Dallas, whatever. Dallas is much more than just barbecue.
Nori, n o Ri. I love hand rolls, love that that quick delicious sushi option. Norri finding Nori. Oh, Okay, it's not bad. You want to get in the zone. Damn, I live in the zone. Tie, Let's get in the zone. The AutoZone Liberty Bowl played at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, six forty five On the twenty eighth on ESPN, it is Mississippi State minus nine. The Mike Leach Bowl Dan Yeah, Buddy, uh Tech in transition Sunny Comby coaching the team for Tech. To me, this has the makings.
I don't know if I don't know if Mike Leach has this bone in his body, But if ever there were one somewhere. This seems like the kind of game where Mike Leach would run it up in a bowl game, like this means something to him, because doesn't he still think that they owe a millions of dollars million? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely he does. So there's like there's that edge there for Leech, and I wonder if he puts a little extra elbow grease into it because of that personal thing.
He seems like the kind of guy who would carry a grudge even though he's low. He and the pirate guy and he likes Key West and all. That's like, it seems to me like he might go for the throat in this one.
That would be my assumption, especially against the Texas Tech team without a full time head coach coaching in this game. Yeah, I'm going Misissippi State, high confidence.
I think I am as well.
I mean, you can eat very well in Memphis, go find you know, go to Central Barbecue wherever. But yeah, with this game, Yeah, I'm I'm going with Mississippi State here. They they are passing game, while not especially explosive downfield all the time, It's very difficult to defend, and Texas Tech was stronger against the run than the pass. So I think it's a nice matchup either way. Mississippi State going out on a high note, you know, disappointing Egg Bowl. Yeah,
I'm going to klanga klanga here in. This game is in Memphis, right, yeah, Memphis, Yeah, not terribly far.
Two more games, let's do it m the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl. They play it now at Petco, where the Pets go.
At Baseball Am which supposedly, by the way, Petco itself great food options within the stadium. Within the stadium, yeah, yeah, very apparently really strong concessions as it relates to other baseball stadiums. I forget where solid wife Kate and I went outside of Petco because we were in San Diego, right a couple of years back.
There's i mean great San Diego's great food overall. But yeah, went to a couple great places. I love San Diego. Nice eight pm on Fox UCLA against n C State. The Holiday Bowl usually has a good matchup. It does again this year. NC State favored by one. I think I am all in on NC State here, Okay, I think I'm all in on NC State. I think I'm all in. I say all in, but I only mean medium confidence. You are somewhat in. I'm somewhat all in yeah, on NC State here because I just feel like they
are the better team. I feel like they are the better team, and I feel like on the heels of an otherwise pretty successful season, there will be motivation here to finish the job. I'm not sure where UCLA is at, and again, we're recording this on a Friday. Are you getting pumped up to play against to travel across the country to play Ucla if you're NC State? Not necessarily, but is UCLA going to be in a position where they care about this game? Is their coach going to
be there at UCLA's That's a good question. Yeah, so I I question the motivation more on the UCLA side than I do NC State. NC State's a veteran laden squad. True, I don't know what their opt out situation will be, if there will be one, but I gotta believe that group of seniors is going to want to close this thing out strong, and I don't know if UCLA gives a damn. So let's go NC State medium confidence.
I'm going NC State medium confidence as well, just because of the pronounced advantage on defense, and I think it travels. NC State one of those teams that, yeah, I basically played well all season long, other than who they get blown out by Mississippi State early on. Yeah, yeah, believe so other than that game, they've played really hard and they've been competitive, and UCLA just their defense is not at all good. So I think NC State has a
really nice day in San Diego. Medium confidence. Also, I know I have a lot of San Diego recommendations, but I looked up to see places I didn't know. Crack Shack, an extremely popular fried chicken place. The crack Shack weird name.
I'll gui see that. But uh, strong looking chicken. I like it. I like it all right, deep breath, longer show than usual. But the final game of this episode, Yes, the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. Oh what a bull? What a bull? What about the best of the bulls, the guaranteed Rate Bull guarantee that rate at Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona. I've been. It's wonderful. Ten to fifteen pm Eastern time on ESPN. It is West Virginia, it is Minnesota. Minnesota is favored by five in this game. Who is the better team
in this game. By the way, Minnesota, you feel strongly about that.
Yeah, they have a great defense. Joe Rossi has done a really great job, very quietly with that Minnesota defense. They don't have like an elite pass rusher, they don't get after the quarterback and all that consistent away, but against the run, they they're just they're very sound defensively, and on offense they're fine, obviously dealing with injuries and inconsistent play at receiver. But yeah, Minnesota's defense and a particular strength I guess against where West Virginia is especially
inconsistent on offense. I just think I think West Virginia was fine at times this year, but I'm rolling with that defense. I think it travels Minnesota here by seven to twelve points, and look, worst case scenario is West Virginia. It's beat up, but they still get to go to Pizzeria Bianco in a couple locations in the Greater Phoenix area, which I think is one of the best pizza places I've been to.
I love it. I've heard good things about Phoenix as a food town.
Yeah, Phoenix, says, well, there's a couple good barbecue options. You can get good Mexican Italian because there is there's a big migration of New Yorkers and Chicago WANs to Arizona. So with that comes some good food places.
I'm on Minnesota here. What's your level of confidence. You're going high confidence, right?
I am going, yeah, medium high confidence in Minnesota here.
I think I am too. I think upper twenties, low thirties. I feel pretty good about.
And also Tanner Morgan announce he's coming back for his tenth year, so there's all sorts of anniversary stuff built around that. Now Minnesota, by the way, I'm seeing number one in the nation in goal to go touchdown rate, so they finish their drives at least when they're close.
I'm in Minnesota. I feel good about Golden Gophers. Yeah, all right, that does it.
Wow, Man, Marathon, I still haven't eaten today, and it's one forty time.
Neither of I running on fumes here talking about good places, talking about bowl games, trying to exude confidence wherever it's embarrassed by that that Tupelo honey thing. So embarrassed. Nobody's perfect day. Here is the deal. Playwinter Wonders dot com. That's the url. Get in on the bullpool. You got to join up with the Patreon to do it. But you compete for a limited edition one of one Winter Wonder shirt designed by Dan Rubinstein. It will be one
of one. It's like a real world NFT. I think you also get the prize pack and get the prize packs. We're gonna throw some other solid verbal goodies in there to reward you accordingly when you win the confidence pool. But Playwinter Wonders dot Com is how you get all the information on how you can get in on that bullpool will be playing. We're gonna have all the solid verbal people. I'm gonna get Mama h in. Can you get Mama Rubinstein or Papa Rubinstein in on? Definitely? What
about the solid toddlers? Can we get them in? Uh? Sure? I don't know how they're going to select the game, so we can get them in for sure. I will find a way to give the dog forty four treats so that she can pick which which one she wants as well. We're gonna get everybody in, so play against the whole solid verbal team at a minimum, get in there, see how you do against us, and compete for some
fabulous prizes at Playwinter Wonders dot com. Don't forget to subscribe to this show on Apple on Spotify if you haven't already. We're gonna continue with three episodes per week through the end of the season and last banal least solid giveaway dot com. So I'll giveaway dot com. Throw your name in the hat to win the Desmond Howard signed mini helmet.
Yeah, you want to get in baby? Is there an Do you want to hear any breaking news? It's actual breaking news. We'll do it on another show.
We'll do that on another show. Got breaking Farner two? I see it?
Okay, Well, hold on, is it the Virginia breaking news? At the Oklahoma breaking news that you're.
I've got Tony Elliott going to Virginia? What's your news?
Did you have Brent Venables hiring defensive coordinator Ted Roof on your bingo car? Oh no, no, you mean it's probably the defense. But that's not real, is it. It's it's one hundred percent real. Come on, Bill Connolly with quote Ted Roof defensive coordinator for Blue Blood School in twenty two. Twenty twenty two is not something I saw coming. He was an analysts in last season.
Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that, Doki. Is that his first hire? Dope?
He uh no, I mean he hired Levy uh to run his offense, Jeff Lebby, and he's retaining Bed and Bob Eatenbaugh the offensive line coach, the excellent offensive line coach. So his staff is coming together nicely. But yeah, okay, dok man ted Roof, Yeah, last scene coordinating the twenty twenty I think it was Vandy defense man.
We had a joke about a leaky roof when he was at Penn State. He must be the nicest guy in the world. He's not good as a coordinator, but he interviews well.
So since two since he was the head coach at Duke two thousand and seven, Minnesota defensive coordinator, Auburn defensive coordinator, UCF defensive coordinator, Penn State defensive coordinator, Georgia Tech defensive coordinator, and See State defensive coordinator, app State defensive coordinator, Vandy defensive coordinator. Ted Roof will help you move. He will pick you up at the airport. He will help you move. He is there for you with a holiday card.
He's there. He's just my God. That's brutal and good times and bad ted Roof, Well that does it for. Yeah, that's a preview number one. We end on a depressing note of an otherwise exciting show. Part two will be on Wednesday. Thank you so much for downloading, for listening, We hope to see you playing the Winter Wonders game with us as well. For that guy over there, be malnourished, Dan Rubinstein, sure, and for myself, Tie Hill my brand.
We'll talk to you all soon. In the meantime, stay solid, peace,