Benster and D Pick Your Bowl Games -- Barry's Back and So Are the Domers Edition!

It's like old home week for the bowls, Geritol Fan! Think of the tradition! Think of the teams getting screwed over by the BCS!

Well, a good BCS screwing is becoming a tradition. Who got screwed over this time, Seabiscuit?

Well, I'd be willing to wager that Georgia got screwed over. How does it work that Georgia finishes ahead of Florida in the SEC East, yet doesn't get into the BCS? And what is Northern Illinois doing in the BCS? No disrespect to the Huskies, but the BCS Busters thing doesn't work with MAC teams. Sorry. Boise? Yeah. TCU? Sure, before they joined the Big XII. Utah? Okey dokey! But NIU? Seriously? What is up with that? Here's the official Orange Bowl Hat for this year:

A lovely souvenir

Well, the mesh construction should keep prospective Orange Bowl attendees nice and cool, I suppose.

Indeed. But enough of that. We'll get back to the NIU bashing soon. First, we have some other games to pick. Watch me work!

Rose Bowl -- Beloved Wisconsin Badgers (+6) vs. Stanford Cardinal. Barry's back and there's gonna be trouble. Hey la, hey la, Barry's back! Okay, the old dude made me say that. But it's true -- Barry Alvarez is back at the helm of the Badgers for one game only. And it's the Rose Bowl, baby! Now, Stanford is a very solid outfit and Mr. Stepfan Taylor has two things going for him -- fine running ability, and a highly unusual spelling of his first name. But what Vegas has failed to realize is that Wisconsin hung 70 points on Big Red a few weeks back and they are capable of scoring a whole lot of points in this game. No team has shown the ability to stop those runs from Melvin Gordon, who will be the X Factor in this game. Badgers 70, Stanford 63.

I doubt that will happen, because Bo Ryan's teams rarely score 70 points. Oh, wait, you mean the football team! Okay, that does happen sometimes. But only in the state of Indiana, dude. Looks like the game is in Pasadena. The Badgers will play well but what gives me pause is this -- Stanford is the only team that slowed down Oregon this season. And they did it in Eugene. I'm going to pick the Badgers, but I don't really have my heart in it. Badgers 27, Stanford 24.

Orange Bowl -- Northern Illinois Huskies (+13.5) vs. Florida State Seminoles. Okay, NIU. This is the team that Jerry the Cable Guy built. Yes, we mean Jerry Kill, now the coach of the Gophers. The NIU staff has won a lot of games with ol' Jerry's players. They play a very fast no-huddle offense that's somewhat like Oregon, except with ol' Jerry's players. Now, that might work against the Akron Zips, but will it work against a real opponent like Florida State? Maybe -- Florida State is not a great team, although they are the best the ACC has to offer this year. Still, this seems pretty unlikely to me. Noles 24, NIU 0.

If you look at NIU's results, you see that they struggled to win against Kansas and lost to an Iowa team that didn't even make a bowl this year. Yes, as grasshopper pointed out, NIU did a great job against the Akron Zips, but FSU is a much better opponent than they've seen up to this point. This is a mismatch. Florida State 34, NIU 14.

Sugar Bowl -- Florida Gators (-14) vs. Louisville Cardinals. Now, if this were a college basketball game, you'd have something. But this is football and while Louisville is a decent football school, they really have no business in the Sugar Bowl. Of course, neither does Florida, which should have been playing Nebraska in the Capitol One Bowl. But no -- the weirdness of the BCS made it possible for Florida to finish ahead of the team that was better than they were, Georgia. Still, Florida is a pretty good outfit this year and they are starting to rise again in the post-Urban Meyer era. Florida 17, Louisville 14.

I disagree. This won't be close. Florida 37, Louisville 7.

Fiesta Bowl -- Oregon Ducks (-9) vs. Kansas State Wildcats. Finally, a good game in the BCS that doesn't involve the Badgers! I expected these two teams to be playing for the national championship, but they both stubbed their toes late in the season, which allowed Alabama, who also stubbed their toe but at a more opportune moment, to get past these two schools. So they get to play in the undercard game. Oregon is explosive and has a lot of speed. Kansas State plays in the Big XII, where speed is also at a premium, so this should be an interesting matchup. The one thing K-State does well is that they are able to slow the tempo down, even while playing quickly when they need to. Oregon is always going 100 miles an hour and they can frustrated if they can't dictate the tempo. If this was a video game, I'd pick Oregon. But this isn't a video game. K-State 7, Oregon 0.

Uh, no. In most of their games, Oregon will have scored 14 points before the national anthem. I think Benster is on to something about pace and tempo, but I'm guessing that Oregon will control that. The team that beat K-State this season is Baylor, which also goes fast. I think Oregon pulls away late. Oregon 42, K-State 28.

Okay, that's enough for now. The BCS Championship is still a week out and I have to build up my HYYYYPPPPPE! So, Ben out!