Contrarian Picks & Strategy For Your 2024 College Football Bowl Confidence Pool
The most wonderful time of the year is upon us — College Football Bowl Confidence Pool Season! While still far off in popularity from March Madness odds and brackets, the contests attract more and more folks each year. Below, we’ll go over bowl confidence pool strategies and contrarian picks to help you win your pool. Also, find college football bowl odds for every game.
Are you new to bowl confidence pools? We’ve got you covered there, too. You may want to bookmark this article, as numbers in the table below will be updated leading up to Dec. 14. Be sure to get your picks in early! Bowl season begins on the day of Army vs. Navy this Saturday!
Scroll to the bottom of the article for a BRAND NEW SECTION on the 12-team College Football Playoff. Many pools include all of the games, so how should you handle them?
WHAT Is A BOWL CONFIDENCE POOL?
Bowl confidence pools are a little like pick ’ems or March Madness brackets. You pick winners for all 42 bowl games and the national championship. The wrinkle is that you then rank your confidence in each pick, values 1 through 47. Do you believe Ole Miss over Duke in the Gator Bowl is a sure thing? You rank it 47. Not sure what to make of Baylor vs. LSU in the Texas Bowl? You rank it 1.
For every matchup you pick right, you get the points. Add it up at the end, and you get a winner!
This simple concept creates an obsessively exciting puzzle to piece together. Some bowl confidence pools take it a step further and add point spreads, but this article will solely focus on standard winners.
GETTING STARTED With Bowl Confidence Pool Picks
Creating a spreadsheet is the easiest way to absorb all of this information. Plug in the matchups and insert a column for the point spread, moneyline, implied win rate, and pick percentage. You can also add information like opening odds and point total. I strongly recommend these columns! If you want a shortcut, use this sheet I made and insert the information you want. Click file -> make a copy in the top left.
To give yourself a starting point, convert moneylines to implied winning percentages with this formula:
- Negative odds: x/(x+100)
- Positive odds: 100/(x+100)
Then, sort the sheet from highest implied win rate to lowest implied win rate and rank your teams that way. That simple move already puts you ahead of most of your bowl confidence pool. If you play in an office or friend pool with casual college football fans, this alone might be enough.
However, let’s dive deeper to give you a leg up in more extensive, sharper pools.
Using Point Totals To Your Advantage
Games with lower point totals have lower expected variance, and games with higher point totals have higher expected variance. When choosing underdogs and ordering picks, consider these rules of thumb!
If you’re looking to pick an underdog, you’re better off looking at USF (+2.5) over San Jose State in a game with a 62.5-point total as opposed to, say, Iowa (+3) over Missouri (total: 40.5 points).
Simply ordering teams based on expected win rate and over/under should be enough to place you in the top 20%.
Market Movement
A ton of moving parts cause the odds to fluctuate pretty wildly. Player opt-outs and coaching changes are the primary culprits. For example, South Alabama became a -10.5 favorite against Western Michigan in the Salute To Veterans Bowl. That line plummeted to -7, hinting that starting QB Gio Lopez — who was injured in the Jags’ last game of the season — may not play. Also, watch for sweeping opt-outs for teams in “consolation” bowls like Miami (FL) (Pop-Tarts Bowl) and Texas A&M (Las Vegas Bowl).
Strong market movement — especially when it comes opposite of the public favorite — is an excellent indicator of a winner. Picking against the vast public majority is called contrarian betting, or in this case, contrarian picking. We’ll go over teams that fit the bill later.
The Information Battle
All sports betting is a battle of information. But it’s more prominent and easier to get information in bowl games. Follow college football news sources on socials and, if you’re serious, turn on notifications to know before your friends do. Many will continue to use records and power ratings — these tools are primarily misleading during bowl season!
Many bowl games will decide who has the fewer or less essential player opt-outs. Coaching changes often cause a loss (or occasionally a win, like Wyoming last year). Did one team fly backward three time zones and play at 8 a.m. internal time as Nevada did in the 2021 Quick Lane Bowl?
Motivation, although tricky to project, is also a significant factor. Did a team fall short of expectations and find itself in a consolation bowl? Are NFL-bound players still playing in this game? Look carefully for situations that suggest a team is just out for a vacation.
These are just some factors to consider when choosing your winners.
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COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOWL CONFIDENCE POOL STRATEGY: THE HEAVY FAVORITES
Pick percentages below are pulled from ESPN’s Capital One Bowl Mania and will be updated frequently. Moneylines and subsequent win rate conversions are from various college football betting sites and will be updated.
| Bowl | Favorite | Opponent | Win% | Pick% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gator Bowl | Ole Miss | Duke | 85.7% | 94% |
| Gasparilla Bowl | Florida | Tulane | 81.8% | 83% |
| New Mexico Bowl | TCU | Louisiana | 81.8% | 84% |
| Independence Bowl | Army | Marshall | 81.3% | 89% |
| Citrus Bowl | South Carolina | Illinois | 80.4% | 89% |
I won’t spend much time on these because they’re pretty straightforward. Expected win rates over 80% are a safe bet to lean into and rank near the top of your confidence pool. Just because they’re popular picks doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be yours, too.
Leaning too contrarian in your pools will make you fall behind quickly.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOWL CONFIDENCE POOL STRATEGY: TOP CONTRARIAN PICKS
The following teams are based on expected win rates against pick percentages. Frequently, entries are filled out according strictly to record or ranking, opening up opportunities for sharper players. Think of it as a pool of teams to choose from. For breakdowns of each team, visit the corresponding bowl odds page below.
| Bowl | Pick | Opponent | Win% | Pick% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AOS LA Bowl | Cal | UNLV | 55.6% | 20% |
| Arizona Bowl | Miami (OH) | Colorado State | 57.4% | 30% |
| Liberty Bowl | Arkansas | Texas Tech | 56.5% | 37% |
| Celebration Bowl | SC State | Jackson State | 50% | 14% |
Cal Golden Bears
Cal has the lowest pick rate among favored teams thus far (just 20%!). Despite a 6-6 record (2-6 record in ACC play), the Golden Bears maintain an expected win rate north of 55%, giving this contrarian pick a ridiculous 35% swing! UNLV lost its head coach, Barry Odom, to the Purdue job and, likely, OC Brennan Marion to another location (though no news broke yet). Don’t underestimate the impact of Odom, who pulled UNLV up from a program with a .365 win rate to .703 in his two years.
Also, watch for major opt-outs from UNLV’s NFL-bound players like star receiver Ricky White III and defensive backs Jalon Catalon and Tony Grimes. On the other side, Cal could be down three starters on the offensive line. Starting QB Fernando Mendoza hit the transfer portal, as well.
This isn’t a sexy pick, but I’m taking it and moving forward any time you give me a favorite with a 20% pick rate.
Miami (OH) Redhawks
There’s a widespread consensus to pick against MAC teams when in doubt in bowl confidence pools. Since 2019, the MAC holds a 12-13 record in bowls and has significant variance in postseason performance; a 2-4 record last year was offset by a 4-2 record in 2022. The bottom line is that blindly picking against the MAC isn’t as home run a strategy as many believe. Like all entries under this section, you get the favored team at a 30% pick rate.
At receiver, Colorado State is without early-round NFL prospect Tory Horton, who suffered an injury earlier this year. The Rams are also without three defensive starters, who all hit the portal, and potentially a fourth due to injury. Defensive coordinator Freddie Banks was relieved of his duties despite leading the defense to the 42nd-best points per drive metric. Further, running backs Avery Morrow and Justin Marshall sustained injuries late in the season.
What makes this such an exciting contrarian pick is the point total, lined at just 42.5 (-106) on FanDuel — one of the lowest marks of any bowl. Lower point totals mean lower variance and a higher confidence the favorite wins.
Arkansas Razorbacks
There is not much explaining needed here; you should get the gist by now. It’s a favored team that’s only picked 37% of the time. This is where you make up solid ground. With a higher point total, there’s much more variance; therefore, this one falls pretty far down the confidence ladder despite being a positional contrarian pick.
SC State Bulldogs
I love this contrarian pick. People pour plenty of research and effort into the FBS bowls, but just a sliver of research into the Celebration Bowl — played between the MEAC and SWAC champions — can be a severe leg up. SC State rosters the HBCU+ National Player of the Year, QB Eric Phoenix, and has roughly a 50% expected win rate against Jackson State. It’s evident that most entrants saw 11-2 Jackson State and decided to punch them in. Only 14% of entrants so far chose SC State, a number that hasn’t moved.
SC State upset Jackson State in the 2021 Celebration Bowl as 10-point underdogs. Jackson State is 0-2 in the Celebration Bowl, both losses coming with Shedeur Sanders on the roster and the second (2022) with Sanders and Travis Hunter.
I assigned 30 points to this contrarian pick thanks to a 36% swing should SC State win this coin flip.
Don’t just randomly pick a team and assign 1 to this game! Use it to your advantage.
BOWL CONFIDENCE POOL STRATEGY: OTHER CONTRARIAN PICKS TO CONSIDER
There’s not quite a discrepancy between the expected win rate and bowl picks percentage here. These are underdogs worth considering due to the discrepancy between the win and pick rates. Simply put, these are underrepresented teams. Nail these underdog bowl picks, and you’re sitting pretty.
| Bowl | Underdog | Opponent | Win% | Pick% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Las Vegas Bowl | USC | Texas A&M | 42.4% | 10% |
| Frisco Bowl | West Virginia | Memphis | 44.4% | 12% |
| Cure Bowl | Jacksonville State | Ohio | 46.5% | 24% |
| Idaho Potato Bowl | Fresno State | NIU | 43.5% | 25% |
| Birmingham Bowl | Vanderbilt | Georgia Tech | 47.6% | 30% |
USC Trojans
To win bowl pools, you must leverage the numbers before you; don’t allow personal biases to get in the way. A peek behind the curtain, this was one of my least favorite picks in my entire pool. It doesn’t feel right — is USC over Texas A&M in these states?
Well, numbers say you should. And so does a little bit of digging.
Texas A&M is without star defensive lineman Shermar Stewart, who declared for the NFL Draft. Other studs alongside him on the defensive line could follow, including Shemar Turner and Nic Scourton. Without that menacing defensive front, A&M may struggle to get anything going, as the offense fizzled in spots. This is also the risk of a consolation bowl attitude for A&M, which missed out on the SEC championship game and CFP by a few points in Week 14 against Texas. Instead, it got sent here.
USC made a change at quarterback, deciding to lay the bricks for its future in Jayden Maiava. I love picking teams with quarterbacks who have an audition (see Miller Moss from last year!); Maiava has an audition against a very good defense. Further, USC has one of the best bowl-winning percentages in the game (35-20, though last year’s Holiday Bowl win is the only in its last five trips). The Trojans also played and won in Las Vegas to start the year.
And with just 10% of entries at ESPN picking USC, this is a massive opportunity to leapfrog just about everyone. Place this game strategically, as it will be one you point to afterward as a foundational piece to your victory should the Trojans win this game.
Jacksonville State Gamecocks
Ohio lost head coach Tim Albin literal minutes after he lifted the Bobcats to their first MAC championship since 1968, taking the vacant head coaching job at Charlotte instead. For Albin and the Bobcats, that MAC championship was the season. The burden of nearly 60 years without a conference title — a time during which every team in the MAC and several others no longer in the MAC (i.e. Marshall) all won — was lifted. Mission accomplished.
Jacksonville State also deals with coaching turnover as Rich Rodriguez left for the opening at West Virginia. It’s worth watching how this number changes in win rate and pick percentage. Chances are, Jacksonville State remains a strong underdog pick here as Rich Rod has been linked to WVU for some time, and the possibility of his leaving is likely baked into the opening number.
Jacksonville State is underrepresented in bowl pools, given its expected win rate (22.5% discrepancy!). That sort of emotional win for Ohio, to go and play in the Cure Bowl in Orlando, sets up for a serious letdown by the Bobbies and an opportunity for the underdog Gamecocks.
Vanderbilt Commodores
Diego Pavia, Destroyer Of Worlds, anyone? While Georgia Tech doesn’t amount to top-ranked Alabama or Texas, Pavia has a proven history of dominance in bowls (see: 2022 Quick Lane Bowl vs. Bowling Green). Despite high-profile games this year, recency bias overtook after GT’s near-win over Georgia, leading Vandy to be underrepresented in bowl pools (17.6% discrepancy).
Georgia Tech had a few key pieces hit the transfer portal: star receiver Eric Singleton Jr. (91 targets, most on the team). It could also be without both starting tackles — LT Corey Robinson entered the portal, and RT Jordan Williams is an opt-out threat. The Yellow Jackets compiled an impressive 5-0 record at home but went just 2-5 away from it, one of those wins coming against a horrendous Florida State team.
It’s not certain Pavia will return to college football next year. Currently, he’s fighting for another season in court. So, with his potential last gasp as a college football legend, expect an exceptional effort from Pavia — a factor that could determine the outcome of this game alone.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOWL CONFIDENCE POOL Picks STRATEGY: TEAMS TO BE WARY OF
High pick percentages and lower expected win rates are good teams to fade in bowl picks. It’s due to an inflated record or the logo on their helmet. Either way, they’re good to be aware of.
| Bowl | Favorite | Opponent | Win% | Pick% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Bowl | LSU | Baylor | 54.5% | 84% |
| Bahamas Bowl | Liberty | Buffalo | 54.5% | 78% |
| Pop-Tarts Bowl | Miami (FL) | Iowa State | 61.8% | 76% |
| Sun Bowl | Louisville | Washington | 65.8% | 87% |
LSU Tigers
Pretty straightforward here: LSU is far overrepresented, given its slim 54.5% win expectancy over Baylor. Further, this game carries a lofty 60.5-point total, implying more variance. Since this game won’t be played for a few more weeks, it takes some speculation. Winds suggest Garrett Nussmeier will play while several other NFL prospects (Miles Frazier, Will Campbell) are up in the air. Starting receiver C.J. Daniels also hit the transfer portal, and star linebacker Harold Perkins won’t play due to a season-ending injury in late September.
Liberty Flames
Though Kaidon Salter hit the transfer portal, his backup is plenty experienced: Ryan Burger, previously of Appalachian State. My biggest concern here is that both starting offensive tackles hit the portal, as did guard Jordan White. Buffalo ranks inside the top five in havoc rate this season and rosters All-MAC linebacker Shaun Doleac. This is an offense that’s seriously depleted, and head coach Jamey Chadwell is tied to a handful of Power Conference openings.
At times this season, Liberty has looked terrible. It lost outright to 0-6 Kennesaw State as 20+ point favorites and mustered just 18 against Sam Houston State with a spot in the Conference USA championship on the line. This just isn’t the Liberty of 2023, though the majority of entries seem to think it is.
The Bulls won their final four games of the regular season and their last three bowl games (including the 2019 Bahamas Bowl!). Liberty is heavily overrepresented here, picked 23.5% higher than its win expectancy suggests. Based purely on numbers, Buffalo makes a nice contrarian pick.
Miami (FL) Hurricanes
Death, taxes, and fading the Miami Hurricanes in a non-major bowl. Miami has lost 11 of its last 12 bowl games, the lone win coming in the 2016 Russell Athletic Bowl over West Virginia. Currently, the Canes are favored, and that number has grown quite a bit in their favor after opening at +1.5. That’s likely in response to Cam Ward saying he’d play in this game. However, will he risk his top-five NFL Draft stock for the Pop-Tarts Bowl? Unlikely once someone gets in his ear.
Also, watch out for Miami opt-outs like receiver Xavier Restrepo and tackle Jalen Rivers.
Aside from opt-outs and bowl record, Miami doesn’t bring it in bowl games. For players and coaches, Orlando isn’t a destination (ask any in-state Floridian), and the Pop-Tarts Bowl is more of a consolation prize after being left out of the College Football Playoff. Last year, Miami laid an egg against Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl, and this game feels like a similar setup.
Iowa State QB Rocco Becht returns next year with something to prove. I’ll fade Miami in bowl pools until I’m consistently proven wrong.
College Football Playoff Strategy For Your Bowl Confidence Pool Picks
For those who immediately want to throw these at the bottom of your bowl picks, I don’t blame you. The math backs that notion up. For example, let’s take Penn State, which has the theoretically easiest first couple of games in the bracket:
- Penn State expected win rate vs. SMU: 75%
- Penn State’s theoretical expected win rate vs. Boise State: 73.3%
- Expected % chance Penn State advances to the semifinals (.75 x .733) = 55%
So, say you choose Penn State to advance against SMU, you’re not selecting a team with a 73.3% chance to again advance to the semifinals — you’re at an 18% deficit. That can quickly compound with any team you select in the CFP.
Of course, someone has to win, and someone will pick the bracket correctly, with a bit of luck.
For instances like Georgia’s leg of the bracket, it may be wise to go with contrarian unknown bowl picks. That way, you’re getting the probability that either team beats Georgia. Here’s why:
- Notre Dame’s theoretical expected win rate vs. Georgia: 46.1%
- Indiana’s theoretical expected win rate vs. Georgia: 30%
- Theoretically expected win rate for either Notre Dame or Indiana (using KFord Rating projections and weighting each team’s chances of being in that game): ~41%
Early pick rates from ESPN’s Capital One Mania show overwhelming favorites for the individuals (Georgia 85%, Oregon 85%). The crowd is far more confident that Georgia will advance than the betting market, making the Bulldogs heavily overweighted in bowl picks.
Good luck with your college football bowl confidence pool picks!
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