NCAA Bowls on December 18th

Saturday begins the 2010 bowl schedule with three bowls being played. So let's take a look at each of the teams that play on Saturday and see where they rank in terms of offensive, defensive, total production and strength of schedule (SOS). I have calculated for the 2010 NCAA FBS season at the end of the regular season the average SOS is 64.26 using my strength of schedule calculation. The reason that it is higher than 61.5 is that a number of NCAA FBS schools played teams in the FCS, which I gave a SOS rank of 121 (one more greater than the worst FBS school, which I will write about later).

Additionally, I will also do is keep track of how well the higher ranked productive team from the model does over the bowl season.

New Mexico Bowl: BYU (6-6) vs. UTEP (6-6)
BYU (#54) overall in production has an offense that is ranked #75 and a defense that is ranked #30. BYU also has a SOS of 63.92 which is just slightly lower (harder) than the average strength of schedule. BYU is the only team playing Saturday that has a more difficult strength of schedule than the average SOS.

UTEP (#74) overall in production has an offense that is ranked #69 and a defense that is ranked #62. UTEP also has a SOS of 84.50, which is substantially easier than the average strength of schedule.

Thus based only on the production model BYU is favored over UTEP. So I am picking BYU as the winner of the New Mexico Bowl.

Humanitarian Bowl: Northern Illinois (10-3) vs. Fresno State (8-4)
Northern Illinois (#9) overall in production has an offense that is ranked #11 and a defense that is ranked #14. Northern Illinois also has a SOS of 81.69.

Fresno State (#77) overall in production has an offense that is ranked #78 and a defense that is ranked #61. Fresno State also has a SOS of 70.83.

Again, based only on the production model, we have our first top 10 team playing in a bowl game this year (Northern Illinois). It will be interesting to see how one of the most productive offenses in the NCAA fares against what is the average defense in terms of productivity.

Given Northern Illinois as a better offense and a better defense than Fresno State, I pick Northern Illinois as the winner of the Humanitarian Bowl this year.

New Orleans Bowl: Troy (7-5) vs. Ohio (8-4)
Troy (#68) overall in production has an offense that is ranked #27 and a defense that is ranked #95. Troy also has a SOS of 77.25.

Ohio (#63) overall in production has an offense that is ranked #85 and a defense that is ranked #34. Ohio also has a SOS of 80.50.

Finally, we have Troy's above average offense against Ohio's above average defense against Troy's below average defense against Ohio's below average offense. If the teams play as they have overall this year, this should be a low scoring affair. Not sure if I will stay up for this one. Anyway, the model predicts that Ohio is overall more productive than Troy and thus I am picking Ohio over Troy in the New Orleans Bowl.