Bowl confidence pool picks for people who haven’t watched a snap since October

It's the most wonderful time of year once again. No, not the holidays — we're talking about bowl season, of course. Sure, opt outs and the transfer portal and the absolute chaos vortex that is the college football calendar have taken some of the shine off of meaningless December football, but we will not be cowed. As long as there are sentient pastries to be eaten and bragging rights to be won, we'll be there.

And no bowl season would be complete without confidence picks, college football's answer to March Madness bracket pools and the best way to get entirely too invested in a game between two teams you've never heard of sponsored by a company whose revenue stream is unclear. If you have no idea what a Hilltopper is or where Kennesaw State is, don't worry; our complete confidence pool guide has you covered, so you can convince the group chat you're no casual without breaking a sweat.

How does a bowl confidence pool work?

Confidence pools are simple: You pick the winner of all 47 bowl games this season, while assigning that pick a point value between 1 and 40 that reflects how confident you are in it. You can only use a given point value once, and you obviously want to assign the highest point value to the pick you have the most confidence in — 47 for a team you consider a lock, 1 for a tossup, and so on.

Because every point total has to be locked in ahead of time, the deadline for most confidence pools is kickoff of the season's first bowl game. This year, that's the Celebration Bowl, a de facto HBCU national title game between the champs of the SWAC (Prairie View A&M) and MEAC (South Carolina State) which gets underway at 12 p.m. ET on Saturday.

That leaves us precious little time to lock in our picks, and with all the chaos around coaching changes and opt outs and the transfer portal, we need all the help we can get. So, without further ado, here's two members of the FanSided staff, myself and Alicia de Artola, are approaching their confidence pools this year.

The FanSided staff's 2025 bowl confidence pool picks

Our respective picks and point totals for each bowl game are below. While not all formats are the same, ESPN has opted to include every College Football Playoff game, so we've followed suit.

USC over TCU

By all rights, this shouldn’t be a difficult game to pick. USC is favored by nearly a touchdown and for good reason. Even if TCU’s 40th-ranked FEI offense can put up points on USC’s defense ranked 49th, Lincoln Riley’s offense ranks No. 2 and TCU’s No. 40 defense is completely outmatched. Still, USC has not won a football game in the state of Texas since 1996. That includes a 1998 loss to TCU in the Sun Bowl and five more since 2012. So I’m picking the Trojans to win, but won’t be surprised in the slightest if the Lone Star Curse sticks. Low confidence here is a safeguard.

-Alicia de Artola

Indiana over Alabama

I know, I know, there's no small amount of cognitive dissonance involved in putting so much confidence in the Hoosiers against a blue blood like Alabama or Oklahoma. And yet, if you removed the logos from the helmets, why wouldn't you have all the faith in the world in Curt Cignetti's team? They've handled every test so far this season, while the Tide and Sooners are both taking on water — particularly on offense. I don't trust either of these teams to score enough to keep a game against Indiana close. What a time to be alive

-Chris Landers

Oregon over James Madison

Nothing would make me happier than James Madison shocking the world and beating Oregon. It’s just the least likely outcome of all the outcomes we see during bowl season. The Dukes are a fun story, but I’d probably take Oregon over anyone coming to Autzen for this game, especially one from the G5. The Ducks are projected to win by 15.4 points by the analytics and I’d even call that generous to JMU. The best defense the Dukes have faced this year — Louisville — held them to 14 points. Oregon’s defense is on another level.

-AA

Clemson over Penn State

Again, making confidence picks in 2025 is as much about reading the tea leaves as anything. On paper, at least, the Pinstripe Bowl between Clemson and Penn State should be a tossup, two talented but underachieving teams that expected this matchup to come in the Playoff rather than in a converted baseball stadium. But the trend lines appear to be favoring the Tigers here.

All signs point to QB Cade Klubnik playing, and even if defensive standouts like Peter Woods, TJ Parker and Avieon Terrell opt out, Clemson will at the very least have pretty much its entire offense intact. Penn State, meanwhile, is already down defensive captain Zane Durant and star running back Nicholas Singleton. It sure seems like one of these teams is taking this game a lot more seriously, which is in keeping with the Tigers' M.O. under Dabo Swinney.

-CL

Miami over Texas A&M

For as much as Notre Dame fans want to complain about Miami getting in over them, Texas A&M is actually the weaker team of the two, despite their 11-1 record. FEI has the Aggies ranked 11th to the Hurricanes’ ninth. That’s largely because Miami’s defense the the better of the two. In games like this, defense is usually the deciding factor. ESPN’s Bowl Mania shows 80 percent of entries picking A&M over Miami, but the advanced stats disagree. CFB Graphs favors the ’Canes by 2.7, even on the road. I like Miami to be motivated here, even if I’m not putting a tone of confidence points into this one.

-AA

Why San Diego State is my biggest upset pick

It pains me to do it, because Drew Mestemaker and the UNT offense were consistently appointment viewing en route to a historic season. Unfortunately, Mestemaker won't be on the field for the New Mexico Bowl, and his head coach, Eric Morris, won't be on the sideline after taking the Oklahoma State job. There's just too much turnover here, and San Diego State boasts one of the better defenses in the country. The Aztecs' roster is largely intact, and they're looking to put the exclamation point on a remarkable bounce-back year under Sean Lewis. There's a big motivation gap here.

-CL

Jacksonville State over Troy

Even though 75 percent of ESPN entries have Troy winning here, I’m making one of my boldest win and confidence picks with the Gamecocks breaking the Trojans. CFB Graphs favors Jacksonville State by 3.6, giving them a 56.6 win probability. Troy’s offense is just miserable. They’re scoring 24.3 points per game and allowing 24.5. They’re averaging 2.79 rushing yards per attempt and allowing 4.73. The Gamecocks are the No. 4 rushing offense in the country this year. Troy is the 113th rushing defense. It’s just not a good matchup.

-AA

Be careful putting too much stock in the SEC

I'm certainly not fading the conference entirely; just look at how much confidence I'm placing in teams like Tennessee and Vanderbilt, not to mention having Georgia in the national title game. But I'd caution against any sort of reflexive faith in the SEC: We have an entire season's worth of evidence suggesting that LSU can't score, so I'm not picking them against a motivated Houston team with a heck of a coach in Willie Fritz. Mississippi State, meanwhile, didn't even reach six wins, and Wake Forest's defense is no joke. It feels like every bowl season we learn that these games are not, in fact, played on paper; don't back bad teams just because of perceived quality of competition.

-CL

Southern Miss over Western Kentucky

Southern Miss and Western Kentucky are a lot closer on paper than you’d think considering 86 percent of ESPN entries are going with the Hilltoppers. But I like the Golden Eagles here, mainly because I like quarterback Braylon Braxton over WKU’s Rodney Tisdale. Elevating Blake Anderson from offensive coordinator to permanent head coach should also give the Eagles some stability.

-AA