One of the most popular ways to get involved in bowl season is to join one of the many college football bowl confidence pools. These pools might have more strategy than any other college bowl pick'em group, as ranking the order of college football bowl confidence picks can be taxing. There are three double-digit favorites during the first weekend, which means the chances of winning your group could be boosted by solid choices. Should Toledo, Coastal Carolina or Fresno State be at the top of your list?
The Rockets are 10.5-point favorites over MTSU in the latest odds from Caesars Sportsbook, while the Chanticleers are 11-point favorites against Northern Illinois. There are a total of eight games over the first weekend, so now is the time to get your picks in before the action kicks off on Friday. Before entering any college football bowl confidence pools, be sure to see the college football picks from SportsLine's Matt Severance.
Matt Severance is a well-connected writer and handicapper who has worked in the industry since 2005. He wrapped up the 2021 college football regular season as one of SportsLine's top experts, ending the year on a 49-32 run on his college football picks, returning almost $1,200 to $100 bettors during that span. Anybody who followed him saw some huge returns.
So before filling out your college football pool picks, you need to see Severance's college football bowl picks. He's using a season's worth of data gathered from game film and analytics. He has analyzed each bowl matchup and ordered every game by level of confidence. He's only sharing his final picks over at SportsLine.
Top college football bowl confidence predictions
One of the top 2021-22 college football bowl confidence picks from Severance: He likes the Florida Gators to knock off the UCF Knights in the 2021 Gasparilla Bowl, which will be played on Dec. 23 at 7 p.m. ET.
Florida is expected to have quarterback Emory Jones, despite reports that he'll seek a transfer after the season. It was an up-and-down year for him, but he still brings a lot of experience and a dual-threat presence to this matchup.
UCF, meanwhile, lost quarterback Dillon Gabriel to a clavicle injury earlier in the season. He has since committed to transfer to UCLA. Severance sees that as an x-factor in this matchup, saying, "UCF might have won this game" if Gabriel were still around.
Instead he's backing the more talented Florida side, which should have some momentum coming off a rivalry win against Florida State in the regular-season finale. He's locking in 41 confidence points on the Gators, so they're a team you shouldn't hesitate to go big on.
How to make college football bowl confidence picks
Severance also is assigning a huge confidence ranking of 27 to a smaller program playing one of the Power Five schools. Picks like these could be the difference between winning your 2021 bowl confidence pool and going home empty-handed. You can see who it is, and get every pick, for every game at SportsLine.
So which teams should you rank in which order in your football confidence pools? And what team outside a Power Five conference do you need to be all-in on? Visit SportsLine to see the full college football bowl confidence picks, and see what teams won't disappoint, all from the No. 1 college football expert who crushed sportsbooks this season.
