As we head into bowl season...

A lot of people are involved in doing Bowl Pick'ems or Bowl Mania or whatever. Just a thought for those of you involved: don't put so much stock into what happened in November when deciding what might happen in late December or early January.

Some teams faltered down the stretch. Doesn't mean their bowl game is lost. They've had a chance to regroup and fix their problems. Sometimes losing 3 or 4 straight to end the season is a result of a few things: wearing down, a mentally crushing defeat, better opponents that are also more familiar with your style, etc.. Teams have had a chance to rest, put the past behind them, and most are playing a team they haven't played in quite some time. The team coming in on a losing streak isn't necessarily any worse off than one coming in on a winning streak. Momentum doesn't carry over a month, especially considering no one is playing in games, plus players have had finals and holidays in the interim. Confidence may carry over, but the more confident team doesn't always win: see BYU-Florida State earlier this season...

A team that was not good at something during the season may prove to be quite good at it in their bowl game, or a team that was good at something may not be good at it during the bowl game. Teams and coaches have a lot of time to correct problems, to game-plan for a specific player or style, and to put in new schemes that are different from what they did during the season. There is a lot of time (15 practices to be precise: that's essentially 3+ weeks of preparation) between the season and the bowl game to implement a variety of different things from schemes to depth to personnel. Also, the things that a team was successful at during the season might get overlooked at this time and they may not be as sharp in their bowl game as a result. Perhaps an unforeseen change in their opponent's scheme causes issues that the coaching staff was not anticipating. It happens.

Anyway, just a couple of tips for those of you gambling on the post-season...

P.S. I also read somewhere fairly recently that the underdog wins over half of the bowl games, something else to keep in mind. I will actually track that this year to see if that is the case.