Submitted by rsteel on
Handicapping college football bowl games is a different animal than the regular season.
1)Coaching: Coaches have weeks to prepare their teams for the bowl game. Coaches that are experienced at keeping their teams focused motivated and implementing a game plan has the edge. You will also see some coaches who have taken jobs at other schools before the bowl game. They will not coach their current team in the bowl game and usually the reins will be turned over to a co-coordinator. This will generally have a negative impact on the prep for this team. Make sure the line is not already adjusted for this event.
2)Motivation: Did the team have greater expectations or is this bowl game a reward for having an excellent season. Huge impact as to how hard and big an effort a team gives in their final game.
3)Location Location: In theory all bowl games are at a neutral field. However some teams are playing much closer to campus than others giving them a distinct advantage with crowd support.
4)Co-ordinators: With some bowl bound teams their offensive or defensive coordinator has already taken a head coaching job somewhere. Usually at the coordinator level they will still participate in the bowl game. However ask yourself where their time and prep is going to spent. Exactly with their new team.