5 Great Sleeper Picks For 2014 College Bowl Pick’em Pools

December 19, 2014 - by Tom Federico

When it comes to winning a college football bowl pick’em pool, you need to choose your picks wisely. Winning a pool is not just a matter of getting lucky — some picks are clearly better than others from a risk/reward standpoint.

College Bowl Pool Upset & Value Pick Strategy

In the vast majority of bowl pools, if you’re playing intelligently, upset picks will only make up a minority of your picks. The goal, after all, is to score more points than your pick’em competitors. If you pick the less likely team to win in all 39 of the 2014-15 bowl games, you’re probably not going to win the pool, unless it’s a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime year for upsets.

However, making some upset picks — especially in larger pools — should increase your odds to come in first place. But you need to be savvy about maximizing the expected positive impact of the upsets you pick. In addition, in confidence pools you should be on the lookout for teams that are highly underrated, even if they are the Vegas favorites.

In short, you want to identify “sleeper picks” that share both of the following traits:

  • Highly undervalued by the public. If you’re going to take a risk, you want to get the maximum possible benefit if that risk pays off. The less popular an upset pick is among your pool opponents, the bigger boost you’ll get if it wins.
  • At least reasonably likely to win. Obviously, the more likely a team is to win, the more often you’ll score points by picking them. If an underrated team is favored to win, that’s ideal, but usually there are also several slight underdogs that are very attractive from a risk/reward standpoint. They won’t win as often, but when they do, you gain a lot on your pool opponents.

5 Sleeper Picks For 2014 Bowl Pick’ems

Using that basic framework, here are five sleeper picks worthy of your attention in bowl pick’em pools this year. But first, keep a few things in mind:

  • These are picks for game winner based bowl pick’em pools only — not point spread based pools. Spread based pools are an entirely different beast.
  • All public picking percentages quoted below are a composite of pick trends from ESPN and Yahoo!, which host the most popular national bowl pick’em pools.
  • All data listed below was current as of Monday, December 15, and is subject to change over time.
  • We do not expect all of these picks to win. Going by win probabilities, we expect two or three of them to win. But since they all offer great value, every win gives you a big competitive boost.
  • We’re not suggesting you make all five of these picks. It depends. Some pools don’t justify taking a lot of risk, and local or regional bias in your pool needs to be considered.

(In case you’re wondering, the exact number of upsets you should pick, and which specific upsets, depends on a number of factors: the size of your pool, its scoring system, its payout structure, and any likely opponent biases. Figuring all that out, and optimizing other critical dimensions like confidence points, is why we built our College Bowl Pool Picks product.)

In no particular order…

Western Michigan over Air Force

Both Vegas (where Air Force is currently only a 1-point favorite) and our prediction models peg this game as very close to even. Western Michigan is almost a coin flip to win the game, yet over 70% of the public is picking Air Force, who have a better record and a more recognizable name. However, our Predictive ratings actually rate Western Michigan as the better team.

NC State over Central Florida

This is a pseudo-home game for UCF, with the game taking place in St. Petersburg, FL. Yet even with that advantage, 9-3 UCF is only a 2-point Vegas favorite over 7-5 NC State, who played a harder schedule this year. Our models give NC State about a 45% chance to win this game, yet they’re only being picked by 24% of the public. That makes NC State one of the most underrated teams in bowl pools this year.

Miami over South Carolina

The SEC brand name carries a lot of weight, and sometimes that creates contrarian opportunities. Like this one: Vegas odds favor by Miami by 3 points in this game, while our multiple computer models give Miami a 50-60% chance to win. That objective data hasn’t been enough to overcome SEC bias among the majority of bowl pool players, who are picking South Carolina. The cost/benefit analysis points to Miami here.

South Alabama over Bowling Green

6-6 South Alabama just became an FBS team in 2012, so it’s safe to say they’re off the radar screen of most bowl pool players. An unknown team with a .500 record from a weak conference certainly doesn’t look too appealing on paper, and indeed, only 32% of bowl pool players are picking South Alabama. But 7-6 Bowling Green isn’t exactly a powerhouse. Based on performance this season, these teams rate very similarly in our Predictive ratings, and Vegas favors South Alabama by 2.5 points.

Memphis over BYU

Coming off a 3-9 season in 2013 and a multi-year slump, 9-3 Memphis isn’t a name that pops into mind when you think about college bowls. 8-4 BYU, on the other hand, has had some great years recently. But these two teams have played similarly tough schedules this year, and both Vegas and our models favor Memphis in this matchup. It looks to be a tight game, but with 62% of the public on BYU, it makes little sense to pick BYU.

Good luck with your picks this bowl season. If you want to get all 39 picks customized to give you the best chance to win your pool, make sure to check out our College Bowl Pool Picks product.