We’ve got a big day of football on tap for New Year’s Day with five bowl games.  There’s five more on January 2nd, but the New Year’s day college football betting card looks much stronger.  In any case, we’ll be back with a round up of the 1/2/10 action later but lets get started now with my suggested wagering positions for Friday’s games.  The only game I don’t have a strong position on is the Florida/Cincinnati matchup in the Sugar Bowl.  Much of that has to do with the psychological/motivational factors surrounding both teams, particularly due to their off the field coaching soap operas.  On one hand, I can make a case that Florida has the better balanced team and the superior talent.  On the other hand, there’s an equally good case that Cincinnati–with one of the best passing attacks in college football–is way too good a team to be laying 12′ points.  So the Sugar Bowl is a ‘no opinion’ but we’ve got positions on all of the other games.  We’ll start bright and early at 8 AM Pacific Time with the Outback Bowl:

OUTBACK BOWL–NORTHWESTERN VS. AUBURN:

Auburn is a fair to middling SEC side, and while they’ve got the advantage in terms of athleticism and team speed not sure they deserve to be more than a TD favorite here.  Pat Fitzgerald has done an amazing job with this Northwestern team, and they’ve developed a reputation for competing until the final gun.  Not surprisingly, this has made them one of the best underdogs in college football in recent years including 5-2 ATS as a dog this year.  We’ll take the points with a tenacious Northwestern team looking to win their first bowl game in 60 years.

PLAY NORTHWESTERN +9 OVER AUBURN

GATOR BOWL–FLORIDA STATE VS. WEST VIRGINIA

This is Bobby Bowden’s ‘retirement game’ and no doubt his Seminoles will come out all fired up to send him out a winner.  The problem is that they’re not a very good football team, particularly on defense.  Mountaineer offense led by QB Jarrett Brown and RB Noel Devine should make mincemeat out of the ‘noles #110 ranked defense.  Look for West Virginia to take FSU’s best shot early in the game and then methodically wear them down en route to a pointspread win/cover.  FSU is overvalued in terms of the line due to the Bowden retirement backstory and they’re not a good enough team to pay a premium on.  There are places that have this game at -2′ and other places with a -3, so shop around and get the better price due to the importance of the ‘key number’.   It probably won’t come into play, but there’s no reason not to get the best price.

PLAY WEST VIRGINIA -2′ OVER FLORIDA STATE

CAPITAL ONE BOWL–LSU VS. PENN STATE

With Bowden gone, JoePA is alone as the elder statesman of college football coaching.  Unfortunately, his team isn’t as good as their 10-2 record would suggest.  They had a cupcake non-conference schedule in which they were favored by a combined -87 in three games.  They lost badly both times they stepped up in class and their wins came against opponents who finished with a combined record of 56-64.  LSU played a tougher schedule and coach Les Miles is a bowl covering machine with a 4-0 SU/ATS mark in postseason play.  The Bayou Bengals win outright in a low scoring affair.

PLAY LSU +1 OVER PENN STATE

ROSE BOWL–OREGON VS. OHIO STATE

I’m not one of these clowns who does the ‘game of the year/lock of the century/1000 star New Year’s Day Bowl play of the year’ nonsense but this could be the strongest position on the remaining bowl games.  We’ve looked for good spots to go against the Pac 10 this bowl season, and this one is no different.  Oregon has a potent, big play offense but Ohio State has the more balanced and efficient offense and a significantly better defense.  This may not be as ugly a beatdown as Nebraska laid on Arizona, but we look for the Buckeyes stop unit to shut down the Ducks as Ohio State attones for back to back bowl disasters with the outright win here.

PLAY OHIO STATE +4 OVER OREGON

We’ll see what we can come up with for New Year’s Day hoops and hockey, and we’ll be back with our January 2nd bowl game selections later.