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Took til the seventh bowl game to find a game that I like enough to post and I like this one a lot. I anticipate posting and playing between 10-15 bowls this season with most of them being regular 2 unit plays, with a couple 5's and it looks like 1 10 unit bomb I have my eye on.
On to the selection:
Hawaii Bowl
213 Notre Dame -2
Units
We have all heard that Notre Dame has lost 9 straight bowl games and in that span is 1-8 ATS but my feeling on that is that games that were played in the early to mid 90's when their current players were in grade school dont have much of an effect on my analysis. Sure Weiss and these players are part of that trend as under his watch they are 0-2 ATS in bowls getting outscored 75-34. But those were against the top 5 teams of Ohio State and LSU and Hawaii is a huge step down in competition in comparison to those teams.
Notre Dame did not exactly play a schedule filled with major powers but a closer look at the strength of schedule shows Hawaii ended their season playing 3 of the last 5 against the #107, #119 and #111 ranked defenses which should improve any team's record and it did theirs. And even playing this type of schedule, Hawaii ranked #117 of 119 teams in TO margin. That tells me their is lack of experience and also a coaching staff that does not concentrate on the fundamentals as much as they should. And that makes some sense with Hawaii led by a rookie head coach, thus having no bowl experience. There is a long layoff between the season finale and the bowl game and McMacklin's preparation is still a question mark.
Its tough for me to imagine that Charlie Weis does not have his team fully focused for this game. If he does and they are, Notre Dame wins this game by double digits.
Good luck everyone.
On to the selection:
Hawaii Bowl
213 Notre Dame -2
UnitsWe have all heard that Notre Dame has lost 9 straight bowl games and in that span is 1-8 ATS but my feeling on that is that games that were played in the early to mid 90's when their current players were in grade school dont have much of an effect on my analysis. Sure Weiss and these players are part of that trend as under his watch they are 0-2 ATS in bowls getting outscored 75-34. But those were against the top 5 teams of Ohio State and LSU and Hawaii is a huge step down in competition in comparison to those teams.
Notre Dame did not exactly play a schedule filled with major powers but a closer look at the strength of schedule shows Hawaii ended their season playing 3 of the last 5 against the #107, #119 and #111 ranked defenses which should improve any team's record and it did theirs. And even playing this type of schedule, Hawaii ranked #117 of 119 teams in TO margin. That tells me their is lack of experience and also a coaching staff that does not concentrate on the fundamentals as much as they should. And that makes some sense with Hawaii led by a rookie head coach, thus having no bowl experience. There is a long layoff between the season finale and the bowl game and McMacklin's preparation is still a question mark.
Its tough for me to imagine that Charlie Weis does not have his team fully focused for this game. If he does and they are, Notre Dame wins this game by double digits.
Good luck everyone.
NFL
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