Holiday Bowl: Louisville vs. USC

[recovering77]

What a way for Vegas to punish people by having the NFL dogs go 2-0 on Saturday, 3-0 on Monday, then follow that up with 3-0 favorites on Tuesday College FB bowl games.


I haven't really been playing bowl season. Too many teams that never play each other, missing players, mixed motivations. Gotta pick one today so I'm going with:


USC +7 (L1) vs. Louisville (L2). Also considering an OVER play on this game with the 58.5 total. So USC is a big dog here because Caleb Williams isn't playing (along with almost 20 other players apparently). But I have faith in brilliant offensive minds like Lincoln Riley. The game is being played in San Diego, CA, so a bit of home field advantage there. You think Brock Purdy is a system QB who succeeds cuz of Kyle Shanahan? Well Lincoln Riley is one of the best in college football. I expect USC to put up plenty of points here.

Louisville will also be missing their top WR and RB.

Also have a look at the UNC game a couple of hours before this one to see how they do without Drake Maye at QB.

[recovering77]

How about that Lincoln Riley! I forgot that Kliff Kingsbury is also on that staff and indicated that he's probably leaving after the season. What a great way to audition for a head coaching job by having the backup throw 6 TDs against a top 20 pass defense.

Favorites still killing it though. They won 5 in a row before USC, then won the OK st. game as well. Though A&M did lose their starting QB on the first play.

I read somewhere that underdogs were killing it the first bowl games, but since I didn't follow I didn't notice. The favorites are evening it out lately.


Probably going small on bowl games the rest of the season. USC was my big play though.


Something to think about when the draft comes around.

UNC played without Drake Maye today, and only put up 10 points, and lost by 20.

USC played without Caleb Williams today, and his backup threw for 372 yards and 6 TDs and put up 42 pts.


Is Caleb Williams a system quarterback? Would someone dare take Drake Maye #1 overall?

[Daws1089]

Nice call here. Jayden Daniels should be the #1 qb taken. It’s not close in terms of talent.

[recovering77]

Nice call here. Jayden Daniels should be the #1 qb taken. It’s not close in terms of talent.

Thanks. I take a long pause when thinking about transfers that light it up with a new team. Jayden Daniels had 10 TD and 10 INT in his last season with Arizona State and that was his third year. Throwing only 10 TDs in 13 starts, in the PAC 12 is pretty embarrassing.

I'm seeing mock drafts with Bo Nix as a possible top 10 pick. He had 6 wins his last two seasons at Auburn. Then he transfers to Oregon and has a great season, and all of a sudden he's a Heisman candidate and a top NFL draft pick.

Show me a quarterback that faced adversity, but still succeeded instead of transferring to another school where the system makes it easier and I'll give you more credit. When you get to the NFL, not everyone is gonna have a Sean McVay, or a Kyle Shanahan, or a Mike McDaniel to scheme up easy reads for them.


P.S. I really wasn't following the Heisman race much until the end, but I assumed it was Michael Penix Jr.'s to lose for most of the season. To me, a Heisman winner is someone that is just explosive every time he has the ball in his hands. And Penix Jr. was that guy to me. He just had one bad game against Arizona State. But Caleb Williams had a similar awful game against Oregon St. last season, but he still won it.