The college football bowl season starts on Saturday and there are important things to look at when trying to pick games. Motivation is one of the biggest factors to look at. You have to consider if a team is happy to be in the bowl game. Were they hoping to end up in a better bowl game before the season?

I made a list of things I learned about picking bowls games last year. I’m going to apply the first four rules to my handicapping this year. One thing that changes is to pick against teams that controlled their BCS National Championship destiny. The new playoff system changes things. Also teams were left out of the playoff by a committee and not because of losing. TCU and Baylor had cases to make the four-team playoff. Instead of not being motivated for their bowl game, they might be motivated to prove that the committee was wrong.

I won’t be picking every bowl game on the website, and will only post my most confident picks with an explanation. With 39 games, I will still be making a lot of picks but haven’t decided how many.