2012-2013 College Football Bowls Predictions & Pick’em Advice

Before we get started, just a quick reminder that our bowl pick’em picks crushed the public again in 2011-12, notching a second consecutive top-2% finish in ESPN’s college bowl pick’em game. For this year’s bowl picks and contest advice, click the image below or sign up now:

Picks & strategy for 2012 college bowl pick'em contests.

It’s 2012-2013 college football bowls season! Time yet again to become emotionally involved in contests between schools you’ve barely heard of playing in games named after sports bars. For those who love college football, it really doesn’t get much better.

Of course, the arrival of the 2012-2013 college bowls also brings with it the thrills of bowl pick’em contests and bowl betting. And with 70 teams playing in 35 games this year, getting prepared for making bowl season picks can be quite a daunting task. TeamRankings is ready to help, with stats, rankings, predictions, picks and contest strategy advice for all of the 2012-2013 college football bowl games.

Now entering its third year after two solid performances in 2010 and 2011, our subscription-based bowl pick’em contest picks and advice is getting a huge improvement this year. And as usual, our algorithmic college bowl game betting picks will be available for every bowl game via our subscription packages.

2012-2013 College Football Bowl Pick’em Picks

Our picks for game winner based bowl pick’em contests have compiled a strong track record over the past two years. Last year we published seven sets of bowl pick’em picks, and entered all seven pick sets in ESPN’s and Yahoo!’s bowl pick’em contests (for 14 pick sets entered total). 8 of the 14 pick sets finished in the top 10% of the nation, and three of them finished in the top 2%.

A top 2% finish translates to an expected first-place finish in a 50-person pool or smaller, or a top-three finish in a 100 to 150-person pool.

In 2010, our performance was even better, when our top confidence point based strategy outperformed 99.2% of players in ESPN’s Bowl Pick’em game, good enough for a first or second place in a 100-person pool or a top-3 finish in pools as big as 300 people or more.

We hate resting on laurels though, so this year our bowl pick’em picks and advice are getting some big enhancements to push the envelope even further:

  • The addition of unique new technology we’ve built to computer-optimize bowl pick’em picks for various pool sizes (a future blog post will explore this more)
  • The introduction of more pick set options to use in case you want to make multiple entries into a contest, or play in multiple contests with different entries
  • Logic improvements for competing in bowl pick’ems that either use or don’t use confidence points

As always, we’ll be there with the human touch, answering questions about our pick strategies of specific pool scenarios. (Just note that access to Q&A with the Team Rankings nerds requires our Pro or All-Star package.)

Subscribe now to get our 2012-2013 college bowl pick’em picks & advice

2012-2013 College Bowl Betting Picks

Our mathematical models offer game winner, point spread, totals (over/under), and money line value predictions and picks for all 35 bowl games this year. These are 100% objective, data driven predictions that factor in thousands of data points and update multiple times per day. We give not only the overall TeamRankings pick for each game and pick type, but also the associated confidence odds that each pick will win, as projected by our models.

Last year was unprofitable for our bowl betting picks, but our long term profitable track record stands. Since we started making college bowl betting picks in 2005, our models have made a total of 255 bowl point spread picks and totals predictions graded as 2-star (playable, or in other words, expected to win more than 52.4% of the time) or better. That’s an average of about 35 playable ATS and totals picks per bowl season.

On those playable bowl spread and totals picks we’ve gone a total of 139-116 for a win rate of nearly 55% — 54.5% to be exact. Our playable bowl money line value picks have also returned a total of +6.3 units of profit since we started making and tracking them in 2008.

How much this level of performance is worth to you depends on a number of factors, including how much you bet and how much you value long-term, systematic prediction approaches. With only 35 games to pick from, even great prediction systems and pickers are subject to highly variable betting pick results over any given bowl season. Our methods have stood the test of time so far, but anyone who “guarantees” a profitable bowl season is a sham, and we would never do that.

Subscribe now to get our 2012-2013 college bowl betting picks

2012-2013 Bowl Game Betting Odds & Lines

We also have a bunch of free information out for the 2012-2013 college bowl season, including 2012 college bowl game odds and a 2012-2013 college bowl game schedule. Subscribers also get access to 2012 college bowl upset picks. Finally, we’ve added a handy table below with every bowl game, complete with a link to our matchup pages showing stats and predictions for each game.

2012-2013 Bowl Predictions and Picks

DateBowlTeam 1Team 2Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/15New MexicoNevadaArizona2012 New Mexico Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/15Famous Idaho PotatoToledoUtah State2012 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl Predictions & Picks
Thu 12/20PoinsettiaBYUSan Diego State2012 Poinsettia Bowl Predictions & Picks
Fri 12/21Beef 'O' Brady'sUCFBall State2012 Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/22New OrleansEast CarolinaLa-Lafayette2012 New Orleans Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/22Las VegasWashingtonBoise State2012 Las Vegas Bowl Predictions & Picks
Mon 12/24HawaiiFresno StateSMU2012 Hawaii Bowl Predictions & Picks
Wed 12/26Little Caesars PizzaW. KentuckyC. Michigan2012 Little Caesars Bowl Predictions & Picks
Thu 12/27MilitarySan Jose StateBowling Green2012 Military Bowl Predictions & Picks
Thu 12/27BelkCincinnatiDuke2012 Belk Bowl Predictions & Picks
Thu 12/27HolidayBaylorUCLA2012 Holiday Bowl Predictions & Picks
Fri 12/28IndependenceOhioLa-Monroe2012 Independence Bowl Predictions & Picks
Fri 12/28Russell AthleticRutgersVirginia Tech2012 Russell Athletic Bowl Predictions & Picks
Fri 12/28Meineke Car CareMinnesotaTexas Tech2012 Meineke Car Care Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/29Armed ForcesRiceAir Force2012 Armed Forces Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/29Kraft Fight HungerNavyArizona State2012 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/29PinstripeWest VirginiaSyracuse2012 Pinstripe Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/29AlamoTexasOregon State2012 Alamo Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 12/29Buffalo Wild WingsTCUMichigan State2012 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl Predictions & Picks
Mon 12/31MusicNC StateVanderbilt2012 Music City Bowl Predictions & Picks
Mon 12/31SunUSCGeorgia Tech2012 Sun Bowl Predictions & Picks
Mon 12/31LibertyIowa StateTulsa2012 Liberty Bowl Predictions & Picks
Mon 12/31Chick-fil-ALSUClemson2012 Chick-fil-A Bowl Predictions & Picks
Tue 1/1Heart of DallasPurdueOklahoma State2013 Heart of Dallas Bowl Predictions & Picks
Tue 1/1GatorMississippi St.Northwestern2013 Gator Bowl Predictions & Picks
Tue 1/1Capitol OneGeorgiaNebraska2013 Capital One Bowl Predictions & Picks
Tue 1/1OutbackSouth CarolinaMichigan2013 Outback Bowl Predictions & Picks
Tue 1/1RoseWisconsinStanford2013 Rose Bowl Predictions & Picks
Tue 1/1OrangeN. IllinoisFlorida State2013 Orange Bowl Predictions & Picks
Wed 1/2SugarLouisvilleFlorida2013 Sugar Bowl Predictions & Picks
Thu 1/3FiestaOregonKansas State2013 Fiesta Bowl Predictions & Picks
Fri 1/4CottonTexas A&MOklahoma2013 Cotton Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sat 1/5BBVA CompassPittsburghOle Miss2013 BBVA Compass Bowl Predictions & Picks
Sun 1/6GoDaddy.comKent StateArkansas State2013 GoDaddy.com Bowl Predictions & Picks
Mon 1/7BCS TitleAlabamaNotre Dame2013 BCS Title Game Predictions & Picks