Looking at the SEC bowls

The first bowls in which SEC teams are involved are coming up this Saturday. The lineup looks like this:

Bowl	Date	Time	TV	Satellite Radio	Matchup	Payout / Team	My Pick / Confidence
Liberty	29-Dec-07	4:30 PM	ESPN and ESPN-HD	X140	Mississippi State vs. UCF	$1,700,000	UCF / 60%
Independence	30-Dec-07	8:00 PM	ESPN and ESPN-HD	XTBA	Alabama vs. Colorado	$1,100,000	Alabama / 60%
Music City	31-Dec-07	4:00 PM	ESPN and ESPN-HD	XTBA	Florida State vs. Kentucky	$1,600,000	Kentucky / 75%
Chick-fil-A	31-Dec-07	7:30 PM	ESPN and ESPN-HD	XTBA	Auburn vs. Clemson	$2,915,000	Auburn / 60%
Outback	1-Jan-08	11:00 AM	ESPN and ESPN-HD	X140	Tennessee vs. Wisconsin	$3,100,000	Tennessee / 55%
Cotton	1-Jan-08	11:30 AM	FOX-HD	XTBA	Arkansas vs. Missouri	$3,000,000	Missouri / 70%
Capital One	1-Jan-08	1:00 PM	ABC-HD	XTBA	Florida vs. Michigan	$4,250,000	Florida / 85%
Sugar	1-Jan-08	8:30 PM	FOX-HD	X144	Georgia vs. Hawaii	$17,000,000	Georgia / 55%
BCS Nat'l Championship	7-Jan-08	8:00 PM	FOX-HD	X144	LSU vs. Ohio State	$17,000,000	LSU / 55%

The SEC being involved in a total of 9 bowls including the BCS championship game is a testament to just how good the league was this year, and in my mind, validates Les Miles' pre-season comments about the league. Obviously, that validation could be mitigated by a poor performance by SEC teams, but we'll just have to wait and see.

As you can see, I am not nearly as confident in some of the outcomes as Vegas appears to be, but I do pick more SEC winners. To be honest, I was tempted to pick OSU over LSU -- it is a very close call. OSU's defense has been excellent, and I agree with Mergz at Saurian Sagacity.

I'm going against the grain on the Auburn/Clemson game. Clemson has many more injuries/suspensions for this game than Auburn, and with the exception of the thrashing at Georgia, Auburn's defense has been very strong the second half of the year.

I wanted desperately to pick Arkansas, but I just can't. With a coaching change, the turmoil they have endured, the lack of a true passing game, the fact that they only beat 3 winning teams all year, the question marks in their defensive secondary against good passing teams (of which they only played one all year, and lost). Missouri just seems like a much better team to me, but when you have Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, anything, including this, is possible.

Overall, though, I pick SEC teams in 7 of the 9 games in which league schools will participate. If that were to come about, it would be a very strong showing by the SEC and, in my mind at least, a validation of the pre-season hype.

Over the next few days, I will be linking to team blogs as they begin to evaluate their team's bowl appearance.

The Tide Druid also has SEC Bowl picks over at his site.