College Bowl Season is upon us, and that means you will soon be contacted by that guy in your office or that casual friend you only hear from once a year to join his bowl pool. We are hoping we can help give you an edge this season with some recommendations for bowl confidence pools based on the current money line odds and the win probability that they imply.
The first step in a confidence pool is picking the team you think will win the matchup outright. Once you have done that for each matchup, as the name implies, you rank each team based on how much confidence you have in them winning. With 41 bowl games on the schedule, a confidence rank of 41 would be given to the team that has the best chance of winning, with the team you feel least confident about given a confidence rank of 1.
It is really that easy! Most casual participants will run down the list of games and pick the team with the better record, or the school with more prestige. More savvy players will include the point spread to make some of their picks, but not many are going to use it down the line, which is where we think we can help. The table below ranks every bowl matchup based on the implied probability that each team will win. The moneyline is the ultimate tool in this situation because it is the closest thing we have to an accurate probability for each team to win. Is it perfect? Of course not! Once the probability starts to fall, there will no doubt be upsets. Our hope is that you can use this information to make more informed picks in your pool.
You can also use this information for so-called Pick ‘Em contests, where you just need to pick the winner of the game outright. As with any pool, you’ll want to shake things up by taking a few upsets here and there, however, don’t go overboard. You want to stick with smaller underdogs and not waste points on a team like Eastern Michigan, who is very unlikely to pull out an upset.
Odds are accurate as of the date this article was last updated. The spreads are bound to change leading up to these games, meaning the probabilities will shift as well. I would recommend waiting as long as you can to submit your picks. We will keep this table updated as lines move so that the recommendations are as accurate as possible all the way until the first game kicks off. Good luck!
The new playoff bracket format introduces a new spin on confidence pools because not all matchups have been determined. The rules of your specific pool are going to determine how you want to approach this, however, you’ll still want to use the odds to help make your selections. In general, I’d check the odds to win the College Football Championship and use that as my guide of who to take in those spots. The trick is going to be assigning a confidence value to teams in the playoff because most pools I have seen so far give the confidence points you assign to that team for each round the team wins. That could be a massive advantage if a first-round team ends up winning the whole thing. It introduces a lot of new strategies. This is something we will have to experiment with and see what the best approach might be. Given the potential, it may be best practice to take playoff teams with higher confidence than you might otherwise because of the potential they have to advance and earn more points. Let’s take a look at this season’s odds and see what we should consider.
Texas +360
Oregon +370
Georgia +475
Ohio State +550
Penn State +600
Norte Dame +800
Tennessee +2500
Boise State +4000
Indiana +4000
SMU +4000
Clemson +5000
Arizona State +6000
Given this information, we’d want to take a hard look at teams like Texas and Ohio State who have pretty good odds to win it all and have additional games because they don’t have a first-round bye. Again, this is entirely dependent on the rules of your pool, but it is something to keep in mind.
Confidence | Favorite | Money Line | Underdog | Bowl | Win Prob. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
39 | Ole Miss | -537 | Duke | Gator | 81.78% |
38 | Florida | -449 | Tulane | Gasparilla | 79.29% |
37 | Texas | -446 | Clemson | CFP Round 1 | 79.21% |
36 | Army | -435 | Marshall | Independence | 78.97% |
35 | South Carolina | -427 | Illinois | Citrus | 78.55% |
34 | Alabama | -421 | Michigan | ReliaQuest | 78.35% |
33 | TCU | -376 | Louisiana | New Mexico | 76.58% |
32 | Texas State | -376 | North Texas | First Responder | 76.58% |
31 | Penn State | -361 | SMU | CFP Round 1 | 75.93% |
30 | Pittsburgh | -343 | Toledo | Sports | 75.05% |
29 | Oklahoma | -323 | Navy | Armed Forces | 73.89% |
28 | Notre Dame | -317 | Indiana | CFP Round 1 | 73.68% |
27 | South Alabama | -308 | Western Michigan | Veterans | 73.17% |
26 | Ohio State | -297 | Tennessee | CFP Round 1 | 72.52% |
25 | UTSA | -288 | Coastal Carolina | Myrtle Beach | 71.96% |
24 | James Madison | -276 | Western Kentucky | Boca Raton | 71.13% |
23 | Georgia Southern | -268 | Sam Houston State | New Orleans | 70.59% |
22 | Kansas State | -259 | Rutgers | Rate | 69.89% |
21 | Bowling Green | -252 | Arkansas State | 68 Ventures | 69.35% |
20 | Syracuse | -228 | Washington State | Holiday | 67.39% |
19 | Louisville | -217 | Washington | Sun | 66.31% |
18 | NC State | -208 | East Carolina | Military | 65.45% |
17 | Minnesota | -208 | Virginia Tech | Mayo | 65.45% |
16 | North Carolina | -200 | UConn | Fenway | 64.61% |
15 | Cal | -195 | UNLV | LA | 64.04% |
14 | Missouri | -182 | Iowa | Music City | 62.51% |
13 | Miami | -178 | Iowa State | Pop-Tarts | 62.01% |
12 | Colorado | -160 | BYU | Alamo | 59.58% |
11 | Memphis | -153 | West Virginia | Frisco | 58.50% |
10 | Nebraska | -150 | Boston College | Pinstripe | 57.97% |
9 | San Jose State | -146 | South Florida | Hawai’i | 57.45% |
8 | Arkansas | -146 | Texas Tech | Liberty | 57.45% |
7 | Texas A&M | -145 | USC | Las Vegas | 57.17% |
6 | Miami (OH) | -136 | Colorado State | Arizona | 55.67% |
5 | Northern Illinois | -131 | Fresno State | Famous Idaho Potato | 54.77% |
4 | LSU | -131 | Baylor | Texas | 54.77% |
3 | Georgia Tech | -124 | Vanderbilt | Birmingham | 53.52% |
2 | Liberty | -123 | Buffalo | Bahamas | 53.31% |
1 | Ohio | -119 | Jacksonville State | Cure | 52.42% |