Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas – Minnesota vs. Texas Tech, December 28^th 9 pm

Minnesota comes into this game and let’s be honest they are not very good. They did finish with an even 6 – 6 record but finished the season and had a Big 10 record of 2 – 6. Their only wins were against Purdue that had their coach fired and Illinois who couldn’t afford to fire their coach.

Texas is in the Alamo Bowl

Texas Tech, on the surface, looks like it could be the same team. Texas Tech finished the season 4 – 5 and that was their Big 12 conference record but the wins were better, the conference is stronger and even though I hate this term, the losses were better and to better teams.

This is a game that I don’t think will be close. Minnesota will have not seen an offense like the one they will see when the Red Raiders take the field. It will be a very pro Texas Tech crowd and Texas Tech wins this game going away.

Texas Tech 45, Minnesota 28

Valero Alamo Bowl — No. 23 Texas vs. No. 13 Oregon State, December 29^th 6:45 pm

Oregon State comes to the Lone Star State for the Alamo Bowl basically having done everything that they needed and were expected to do in the Pac 12 besides the loss to Washington. They lost to Stanford and Oregon. In the nonconference they started off the year with a bang by beating the 13^th ranked Wisconsin Badgers. They are a gritty team and will be really well coached.

Texas was supposed to come into the year with a great defense and a developing offense and things have ended up being the other way around where the offense has done better than expected and the defense has done a lot worse than expected.

Oregon State has over achieved and Texas has underachieved but this will be a really good game. Texas will win this game if their pass rush can get home and their underperforming defensive backfield can stop or at least slow down Oregon State’s wide receivers that might be the best tandem in the country.

This is going to be a tough game and I’ll reserve my prediction until December 28^th.

Bowl games are on everyone’s mind. Getting out of town and taking a trip to a new city can be ideal. But is the weather in the city hosting the bowl game ideal? Check out the bowls with the best weather – including the warmest and coldest forecasted bowls. We’ve also highlighted some memorable games in the past. Rain or shine, snow or sun, TicketCity has your bowl game tickets for all 35 games.

Now that bowl predictions are a thing of the past its time to look at some of the best matchups slated to take place in the coming month, and though it’s too late to win anything by predicting which teams will end up in a bowl, it’s not too late to win tickets for you and three of your friends at the Bowl Game of your choice, but don’t wait too long because the TicketCity Bowl Contest ends December 6, 2012.

Like most college football fans, I am actually quite intrigued by this year’s National Championship matchup. Despite the fact that it should be Georgia in place of the Crimson Tide due to a not so great coaching call, I still think this will be one of the best football games of the year. I was definitely optimistic about the Fighting Irish early on in the season not letting myself believe how good this team was. I continued this trend through the Michigan, Michigan State, and Stanford games thinking they would meet their demise come Halloween weekend against Oklahoma. Well we all know how that ended up and though there might be an argument with who the BCS has slated as #2, I think everyone agrees that they got #1 right.

What was shaping up to be a possible National Championship match up in week 12, now has its sights set on the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Besides the anticipation of seeing what the Duck’s jerseys will look like, I am excited to see the #4 Oregon Ducks and the #5 Kansas State Wildcats take the field together. On paper the game looks to be promising as the Ducks resemble the crafty and explosive spread offense that took the Wildcats down against Baylor while the K-State team shares similarities to the Stanford team that left the Ducks with a loss. All in all my prediction is that the game will come down to the Wildcats Defense. Oregon will be Oregon and the Wildcats will find themselves in a deep hole early if they can’t contain them and produce turnovers.

Two conference rivalries will come back to life this year in the AT&T Cotton Bowl and the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. Texas A&M will get a shot at taking on an old Big 12 foe at the Cowboys Stadium against Oklahoma. Though I am sure the Aggies were hoping for revenge against Texas in the Cotton Bowl, they can still seek it against Oklahoma. The Sooners have a staggering 11-2 winning record with Bob Stoops against the Aggies including last year’s 41-25 win before A&M moved to the SEC. Moving east; the New Era Pinstripe Bowl will re-ignite an old Big East rivalry between Syracuse and West Virginia for the Ben Schwartzwalder Trophy. The rivalry game between the two had been played annually from 1955-2011 until West Virginia left the conference and joined the Big 12. If it was not enough to measure the emotions that are present in a bowl game, sprinkle in the bitter taste of a rivalry and expect to get the unexpected.

The last bowl game that stands out as one of the best this year to me will be surrounded by hundreds of cows telling you to eat more chicken. Not really, but the Chick-fil-A Bowl will pit the two best Tigers in college football as #8 LSU and #14 Clemson take to the field in the Georgia Dome. Clemson and LSU had exceptional seasons both only losing two games to ranked opponents and from a statistical stand point the teams are practically identical. On average Clemson produces more points per game but LSU allows less per game and produced more than three times the amount of turnovers as did Clemson. This should be another exciting game and if you had to choose a winner you can’t go wrong picking the Tigers.

If you are sitting back feeling like the football season is coming to an end just as quickly as it began, remember it’s not too late to catch your favorite team in their last game of the season on TicketCity. Enter the contest before December 6 and get the chance to sit front and center at the bowl game of your choice.

Sheraton Hawaii Bowl: Fresno State vs. Southern Methodist, December 24^th, 8 pm

Aloha Stadium

This game is going to be good because the Fresno State offense is explosive and has NFL guys on the roster. They have a quarterback that has thrown for over 3,700 yards and 36 touchdowns. They have a 1,400 yard rusher, a 1,000 yard receiver and a 700 yard receiver.

SMU comes in with a solid running game and a former Gatorade National Player of the Year in former Texas QB Garrett Gilbert trying to reach his own star status on a new team.

This is going to be a tough game for SMU because defense is not their strong suit. I expect Fresno State to put up a lot of points but the resourceful SMU team to play pretty well with June Jones heading ‘home’ for the bowl game.

Fresno State is the winner.