The Pick Sixer's Guide to the 2010 Bowl Season

Last year I wrote a thousand words, complete with pictures of Elvis, Wannstache and the Dude, previewing the bowl games. That might have been a bit much to digest, so I followed it up with easy-to-read charts.

This year, since I'm hosting the Pick Six™* game, I'm going to make it really easy on you. There are only three categories of bowl games, and they are based on the Pick Six teams.

DON'T EVEN BOTHER

• Dec. 18, New Mexico, BYU (6-6) vs. UTEP (6-6)
• Dec. 18, Humanitarian, Northern Ill. (10-3) vs. Fresno St. (8-4)
• Dec. 18, New Orleans, Troy (7-5) vs. Ohio (8-4)
• Dec. 21, St. Petersburg, Louisville (6-6) vs. Southern Miss (8-4)
• Dec. 23, Poinsettia, San Diego St. (8-4) vs. Navy (8-3)
• Dec. 29, Military, Maryland (8-4) vs. East Carolina (6-6)
• Dec. 29, Texas, Illinois (6-6) vs. Baylor (7-5)
• Dec. 30, Armed Forces, SMU (7-6) vs. Army (6-5)
• Dec. 30, Pinstripe, Syracuse (7-5) vs. Kansas St. (7-5)
• Dec. 31, Meineke Car Care, Clemson (6-6) vs. South Florida (7-5)
• Jan. 1, TicketCity, N'western (7-5) vs. Texas Tech (7-5)
• Jan. 6, GoDaddy.com, Fake Miami (9-4) vs. Mid. Tenn. St. (6-6)
• Jan. 9, Kraft Fight Hunger, Nevada (12-1) vs. Boston College (7-5)

Finish your shopping or gift wrapping. Make that overdue call to Grandma. Write Christmas cards. Do whatever it is you do when you aren't watching football, because nobody picked any of these teams in these 13 bowls. You don't care. Unless you have some other reason to care.

YOU CARE, BUT NOT IN A COMPETITIVE WAY

• Dec. 31, Liberty, UCF (10-3) vs. Georgia (6-6)
• Dec. 24, Hawaii, Hawaii (10-3) vs. Tulsa (9-3)
• Dec. 26, Little Caesars, Toledo (8-4) vs. Florida Int'l (6-6)
• Dec. 27, Independence, Air Force (8-4) vs. Georgia Tech (6-6)
• Dec. 28, Champs Sports, N.C. St. (8-4) vs. West Virginia (9-3)
• Dec. 29, Alamo, Arizona (7-5) vs. Oklahoma St. (10-2)
• Dec. 30, Music City, N. Carolina (7-5) vs. Tennessee (6-6)
• Jan. 1, Capital One, Michigan St. (11-1) vs. Alabama (9-3)
• Jan. 7, Cotton, Texas A&M (9-3) vs. LSU (10-2)
• Jan. 8, BBVA Compass, Pittsburgh (7-5) vs. Kentucky (6-6)

These 10 games feature one Pick Six team vs. one non-Pick Six team. So yeah, someone's points are being affected, but it's in a vacuum. There's no joy of seeing a competitor team lose, knowing they will lose points in the final poll. (Although the schadenfreude-loving of us will watch the LSU game knowing that 11 of the 22 P6'ers have the Tigers.) It's not as directly exciting as the next batch...

WATCH THESE GAMES

• Dec. 22, Maaco, 3Utah (10-2) vs. 6Boise St. (11-1)
• Dec. 28, Insight, 1Missouri (10-2) vs. 6Iowa (7-5)
• Dec. 30, Holiday, 1Washington (6-6) vs. 5Nebraska (10-3)
• Dec. 31, Sun, 2Real Miami (7-5) vs. 1Notre Dame (7-5)
• Dec. 31, Chick-fil-A, 2Florida St. (9-4) vs. 1S. Carolina (9-4)
• Jan. 1, Outback, 5Penn St. (7-5) vs. 2Florida (7-5)
• Jan. 1, Gator, 1Michigan (7-5) vs. 1Mississippi St. (8-4)
• Jan. 1, Rose, 6Wisconsin (11-1) vs. 3TCU (12-0)
• Jan. 1, Fiesta, 5Oklahoma (11-2) vs. 2Uconn (8-4)
• Jan. 3, Orange, 3Va. Tech (11-2) vs. 3Stanford (11-1)
• Jan. 4, Sugar, 9Arkansas (10-2) vs. 6Ohio St. (11-1)
• Jan. 10, BCS Title, 5Auburn (13-0) vs. 7Oregon (12-0)

This is where the rubber hits the road, the fur starts to fly ... the points will grow or shrink in accordance with a team's success or failure. The blue number indicates how many P6 folks have that team, NOT their current AP rank. For that, and to check your teams the morning of Jan. 11 check out the AP Top 25 homepage. But yeah, a LOT of us will be watching the Sugar Bowl and the title game.

* -- not really trademarked. Just playing around with superscripts in HTML.