The 2023-24 college football bowl season runs Dec. 16 through Jan. 8 and there will be a total of 43 bowl games in Division I. In most college football bowl confidence pools, you'll pick the winners of 41 games and order them from your most confident choice to your least. Oddsmakers have listed South Alabama as one of the biggest favorites of bowl season as it takes on Eastern Michigan in the 68 Ventures Bowl, but does a 15.5-point spread mean that you should be plugging them in near the top of your college football bowl confidence picks?
South Alabama already lost outright as a 16.5-point favorite against one MAC school (Central Michigan) this season we've season double-digit favorites lose regularly during college football bowl season throughout the years. So which teams should you be backing, and which ones should you be staying away from as you look to take on your friends, family and co-workers in college football pools this holiday season? Before entering any college football bowl confidence pools, be sure to see the college football picks from SportsLine's Emory Hunt.
Hunt is the founder and CEO of Football Gameplan, which has been supplying analysis of all levels of football since 2007. He is a former running back for the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns and knows the game from a player's perspective. He enters the 2023-24 college football bowl season on a 46-27 roll on all college football picks, returning nearly $1,700 for $100 players during that span. Anybody following him is way up.
So before filling out your college football pool picks, you need to see Hunt's college football bowl picks. He has analyzed each bowl matchup and ordered every game by level of confidence. He's sharing his picks over at SportsLine.
Top college football bowl confidence predictions
One of the top 2023-24 college football bowl confidence picks from Hunt: He likes the No. 21 Tennessee Volunteers to beat the No. 17 Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2024 Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1 at 1 p.m. ET. This Tennessee offense isn't as dominant as the one that ranked first in Division I in scoring (46.1 ppg) last season, but the Vols still averaged 31.5 points and 453.5 yards per game this season.
Running back Jaylen Wright has opted out for Tennessee, but RBs Jabari Small and Dylan Sampson, combined with quarterback Joe Milton, still give Tennessee one of the country's most versatile running games. That group will have its work cut out against an Iowa defense that ranked third in the nation in points allowed per game (13.2), but it shouldn't take much against an Iowa offense that was shut out by both of the ranked opponents it faced in 2023. See who else to pick here.
How to make college football bowl confidence picks
Hunt is also going all-in on a double-digit underdog with one of his most confident picks. Picks like these could be the difference between winning your 2023-24 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 order should you rank teams in your college football confidence pools, and which massive underdog 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 college football expert who crushed sportsbooks this season.
