Bowl season starts tomorrow, so today's your last chance to get in and get full points in the 2011 Rocky Top Talk Bowl group at Fun Office Pools. If you played last year you should've gotten an email back on or around December 5 with registration info, but either way you can also head on over to the Fun Office Pools website and search for "Rocky Top Talk 2011 Bowl" to find us. Same as the regular season, we're picking straight up with confidence points, which is even more of an adventure with 35 bowl games.
After the jump, the complete breakdown of how our community is leaning on all 35 bowl games...
Saturday, December 17
- New Mexico Bowl: 60% Temple over Wyoming
- Potato Bowl: 53% Ohio over Utah State
- New Orleans Bowl: 72% San Diego State over Louisiana-Lafayette
Tuesday, December 20
- Beef O'Brady's Bowl: 72% Florida International over Marshall
Wednesday, December 21
- Poinsettia Bowl: 98% TCU over Louisiana Tech
Thursday, December 22
- Las Vegas Bowl: 100% Boise State over Arizona State
Saturday, December 24
- Hawaii Bowl: 95% Southern Miss over Nevada
Monday, December 26
- Independence Bowl: 84% Missouri over North Carolina
Tuesday, December 27
- Little Caesar's Bowl: 65% Purdue over Western Michigan
- Belk Bowl: 72% NC State over Louisville
Wednesday, December 28
- Military Bowl: 56% Air Force over Toledo
- Holiday Bowl: 67% Texas over California
Thursday, December 29
- Champs Sports Bowl: 63% Florida State over Notre Dame
- Alamo Bowl: 95% Baylor over Washington
Friday, December 30
- Insight Bowl: 98% Oklahoma over Iowa
- Armed Forces Bowl: 70% BYU over Tulsa
- Pinstripe Bowl: 67% Rutgers over Iowa State
- Music City Bowl: 86% Mississippi State over Wake Forest
Saturday, December 31
- Meineke Car Care Bowl: 84% Texas A&M over Northwestern
- Sun Bowl: 81% Georgia Tech over Utah
- Liberty Bowl: 53% Cincinnati over Vanderbilt
- Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: 67% Illinois over UCLA
- Chick-Fil-A Bowl: 67% Auburn over Virginia
Monday, January 2
- Ticket City Bowl: 70% Houston over Penn State
- Outback Bowl: 70% Georgia over Michigan State
- Capital One Bowl: 74% South Carolina over Nebraska
- Gator Bowl: 63% Florida over Ohio State
- Rose Bowl: 79% Oregon over Wisconsin
- Fiesta Bowl: 79% Oklahoma State over Stanford
Tuesday, January 3
- Sugar Bowl: 72% Michigan over Virginia Tech
Wednesday, January 4
- Orange Bowl: 88% Clemson over West Virginia
Friday, January 6
- Cotton Bowl: 93% Arkansas over Kansas State
Saturday, January 7
- BBVA Compass Bowl: 58% Pittsburgh over Southern Methodist
Sunday, January 8
- GoDaddy.com Bowl: 56% Northern Illinois over Arkansas State
Monday, January 9
- BCS National Championship: 70% LSU over Alabama
Other random notes:
- Average Confidence Points in the BCS Championship: 17.5 on LSU, 18.8 on Alabama
- Most Confident Pick, by far: Arkansas over Kansas State at 29.4 confidence points on average. Next closest favorite is Oklahoma over Iowa at 24.7 confidence points on average. Vegas has Oklahoma as the biggest bowl favorite at -15.5, but only three teams are favored by double digits (Boise State -13.5 over Arizona State, TCU - 11.5 over Louisiana Tech), which should make for a very competitive slate of games.
- An SEC team obviously has to lose in the title game, but our pickers like the league to win all of their other matchups except, of course, Vanderbilt against Cincinnati. Barely.
- People complain about bowls and such and what's become of tradition, but that's a nice little lineup in the traditional January 1 spot, being played on Monday, January 2 this year because of the NFL on New Year's Day.