After the pandemic limited last year’s bowl season, the 2021-22 college football bowl schedule returns to a more traditional format. The action begins with two bowls on Dec. 17 and rolls all the way to Jan. 4, with the College Football Playoff title game then following on Jan. 10. Bowl confidence games are back this season, and there are over 40 matchups to break down and some tough calls to make on how many confidence points to assign to each one.
With players opting to skip bowl games, injuries, transfers and more to consider, some help can go a long way in winning bowl confidence pools. Who wins the huge College Football Playoff matchups — No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Cincinnati and No. 2 Michigan vs. No. 3 Georgia — and every other bowl game? Before making any college football predictions, be sure to see the bowl confidence pool picks from SportsLine’s proven computer model.
The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every FBS college football game 10,000 times. Over the past five-plus years, the proprietary computer model has generated a stunning profit of almost $3,700 for $100 players on its top-rated college football picks against the spread. It also enters the 2021-22 college football bowl season on a 43-29 run on all top-rated college football side picks. Anyone who has followed it has seen huge returns.
Now it has simulated each matchup on the 2021-22 college football bowl schedule 10,000 times and assigned a confidence rating to each game. You can only see all the college football bowl picks over at SportsLine.
Top college football bowl confidence predictions
One of the top 2021-22 college football bowl confidence picks from the model: No. 25 Texas A&M beats No. 17 Wake Forest in the Gator Bowl at 11 a.m. ET on Dec. 31. The Aggies fell short of some lofty preseason expectations, but they still pieced together a solid 8-4 season with a 4-4 mark in the rugged SEC West. They won five of their last seven games, a run that included a victory over top-ranked Alabama.
Wake Forest had an impressive season-long profile that included a 10-3 record and an ACC Atlantic Division title. But the Demon Deacons lost three of their last five games, including 20-plus points setbacks against Clemson and Pittsburgh. Texas A&M’s defense gave up just 15.9 points per game this season, and SportsLine’s model is projecting that it does a great job limiting Wake Forest’s high-powered offense attack. Texas A&M wins in 70.4 percent of simulations, making it the computer’s ninth-most confident pick.
Another one of the bowl confidence predictions the model is high on: Louisiana knocks off Marshall in the New Orleans Bowl on Dec. 18 at 9:15 p.m. ET. Head coach Billy Napier is moving on to Florida, but the Ragin’ Cajuns just polished off a Sun Belt title with an impressive win over Appalachian State. Louisiana ran the table this season after its season-opening loss to Texas.
Marshall, meanwhile, had more of an up-and-down season. The Thundering Herd did have a four-game winning streak at one point, but also dropped three in a row. They also lost two of their final three, including a 53-21 blowout loss to Western Kentucky in the regular-season finale. SportsLine’s model has Louisiana winning 70.3 percent of the time, meaning it is one of the picks you can make with a lot of confidence.
How to make college football bowl confidence picks
The model has also made the call on who wins every other bowl game. There are four teams that win at least 75 percent of the time, so you need to go big on these matchups, as well as multiple underdogs that win outright. You can get all the model’s picks over at SportsLine.
So who wins every college football bowl game? And which matchups should you assign the most confidence points to? Visit SportsLine to see the full college football bowl confidence picks, all from the model that is up almost $3,700 for $100 players on its top-rated college football spread picks over the past five-plus season, and find out.
