The 2024-25 college football bowl season will kick off on Saturday when South Alabama takes on Western Michigan in the Salute to Veterans Bowl at 9 p.m. ET. Over the course of the next five weeks, there will be 46 bowl matchups (including all College Football Playoff games) and the college football bowl schedule includes some stylistically intriguing battles. South Carolina felt it had a case to make the CFP but wound up on the outside looking in. Now, the No. 15 Gamecocks will have to rebound to take on No. 20 Illinois in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl on Dec. 31.
The Gamecocks are 9.5-point favorites in the latest college football bowl odds, but will they actually show up motivated after it looks like they weren't given serious consideration for the 12-team playoff? Motivation is always a factor during bowl season and it's something that you'll need to consider as you make your college football bowl confidence picks. Before entering any college football bowl confidence pools, be sure to see the college football picks from SportsLine's Thomas Casale.
A frequent guest on national radio and TV shows to discuss college sports, Casale has been sports betting -- and winning -- for more than 30 years. Over the past two college football seasons, Casale is 122-92-5 (57%) overall on his college football picks and 26-8 (76.4%) in bowl games -- all publicly documented. Two weeks ago, he also nailed all three of his best bets for a +600 college football parlay hit and he's now 5-1 over the last two weeks. Anybody who has followed him is way up.
So before filling out your college football pool picks or making any CFB bets, you need to see Casale's college football bowl picks. He has analyzed each bowl matchup and ordered every game by level of confidence. He's sharing his picks over at SportsLine.
Top college football bowl confidence predictions
One of the top 2023-24 college football bowl confidence picks from Casale: He likes No. 11 Alabama, a 10-point favorite, to beat Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl on New Year's Eve after missing out on a spot in the CFP. The Crimson Tide went 9-3 and had a case to be included over SMU but ultimately were left out largely because of losses to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma (both 6-6).
However, Kalen DeBoer will want to close out his first season in Tuscaloosa emphatically to get to 10 wins, a mark that Nick Saban reached in each of his final 16 seasons at Alabama. The Crimson Tide will also want to send a message to the committee that they belonged in the College Football Playoff in an effort to avoid any similar situations in the future.
More importantly, Alabama is in better shape than Michigan from a roster standpoint, even if several players inevitably opt out. The Michigan offense's season-high in passing yards was 208 and the Wolverines threw for less than 150 yards in eight of their 12 games. Meanwhile, Alabama ranked 10th in the nation in scoring defense (17.7 ppg) and forced 27 turnovers in 12 games. See who else to pick here.
How to make college football bowl confidence picks
Casale is also going all-in on an underdog with one of his most confident picks. Picks like these could be the difference between winning your 2024-25 bowl confidence pool and going home empty-handed. You can see who it is and get every pick for every game at SportsLine.
So which order should you rank teams in your college football confidence pools, and which underdog do you need to be all-in on? Visit SportsLine to see the full college football bowl confidence picks, and see what teams won't disappoint, all from the college football expert who has gone 26-8 on his college football bowl picks the last two seasons.
