College football bowl confidence pool picks and strategies

College football bowl confidence pool picks and strategies are available. Successful bettors and handicaps have to have utmost confidence in their processes and abilities. The bowl season presents ample opportunity to find off-market lines and games that stand out. You have also to use some game theory and analyze what the competition is likely to do.

Confidence pools are based on points assigned to the games from 1 to 42. The entry with the most points wins. The goal is to get as many games correct as possible. This year's bowl games are this year’s. Some will feature against-the-spread picks, but the vast majority are picking the straight-up winner of the 41 bowlgames.

There are many reasons why teams are favored in college football bowl games. Stronger conferences yield better, more tested teams. The difference in conference strength also plays a big role. A team in the SEC will likely be favored over a team from the ACC.

There are more players leaving college football and more coaches leaving their programs. The loss of a head coach can lead to a mass exodus in the transfer portal. Coaches are often responsible for the X's and O's between the lines that define bowl game outcomes.

Josh Appelbaum recommends going contrarian in his analysis of college football confidence pool picks. He suggests picking against popular teams and avoiding the more popular upsets. For example, Washington, which finished 10-2 with a six-game winning streak, will be a popular pick against Texas, who limped to an 8-4 finish. Kansas State over Alabama will also be popular. If the Wildcats don't beat Nick Saban’s bunch, it would be an upset gamble for a lot of entrants. It might be the difference between finishing with good score and finishing without a great score.

The smaller the pool, the more conservative you should be. In a large pool you will have to take some gambles and riskier positions. If you're in a sharper, more high-stakes pool then you'll have some different moves than you would with people that aren't in the know.

Every pick matters. Even the lowest confidence picks will add up. Stale lines magnify the importance of confidence pools. Three points of free line equity is worth moving up a few numbers on the confidence scale.

There are a lot of moving parts to the college football bowl games. Players and coaches are still making decisions about their futures. Lines will move, creating higher or lower implied probabilities for teams.