College Football Picks

This line fell to -3.5 from -4.5 on the news that San Jose State WR Nick Nash opted out of the Hawai’i Bowl. That -4.5 had that possibility already baked in. The crux of this handicap, though, is Spartans head coach Ken Niumatalolo. He took over a program feeling some abandonment and put together a 7-5 showing in his first season. Now he takes SJSU back to the same bowl it was in last season, but with the added emphasis of Niumatalolo being a native Hawaiian. Furthermore, his father passed away eight days before this game. If ever a team was going to be locked in for a bowl, it’s when returning to the site it enjoyed last year, under a first-year head coach with more emotion in his voice than ever.

One of the greatest lies of the 2024 season is believing in Georgia Tech because it upset Florida State in the first game of the entire season. Clearly, that was not as impressive as the world assumed in the moment. GT is a solid team, not a great one. It would take a great team to stop Vanderbilt in its first bowl game since 2018 and the first under Clark Lea. Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia finished the season pretty beat up. A month off should have him back to his frenetic ways, rather tailormade for the unpredictability of bowl games.

Lincoln Riley has to put on a good face publicly, but he knows he misevaluated his quarterbacks last offseason. Miller Moss is already off to Louisville, and Jayden Maaiva has not exactly looked the part yet, completing only 59.7% of his passes in his three starts. Not to be dramatic, but things at USC might be turning to the worse. Receiver Zachariah Branch is one of the most dynamic players in the country, the kind of player usually made famous in a Trojans uniform. His transferring speaks to larger issues at USC, a locker room that Riley may be losing. Facing Texas A&M’s Mike Elko-enthused mentality, a lost locker room may be a bowl-game disaster.

First of all, Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola has refuted transfer rumors. Presume that holds. But nonetheless, there is value in Boston College at this number. The Eagles closed the season 5-0 ATS and 3-1 outright in their last four. BC exceeded bookmakers’ expectations by nine points per week in those five successes since late October. Three of those closing covers were as underdogs. Bill O’Brien quickly righted the debacle Jeff Hafley left behind, and his focus will be entirely on the Pinstripe Bowl while Matt Rhule may be more honed in on his 2025 roster already, already beginning with retaining Raiola.

As far as bowl games go, the Citrus Bowl may be one of the most genuinely comparable to the season. Both rosters should be rather intact. At which point, one has to ask, why is this spread still in the single digits? While the Gamecocks might have some Playoff disappointment to get over, that will be five weeks in the past by New Year’s Eve. South Carolina’s defensive line should ruin Illinois’s entire offensive approach, while QB LaNorris Sellers has a Heisman campaign to launch. When a program closed a season as strongly as SC did, with greater heights imaginable in the next season, a strong bowl showing is not a hard motivation to sell. Meanwhile, the Illini likely already peaked.