How The West Was Won: Stacking Up The Pac-12 Expats During Bowl Season

Welcome to the unofficial silly season in amateur football, where operations people try to figure out how to send truckloads of equipment across the country while head coaches flirt with other programs in conference rooms far and wide.

While our nation’s lonely eyes are forced to go without FBS football until the weekend for a doubleheader of contests, beginning with the Cricket Celebration Bowl between HBCU powers Jackson State and South Carolina State and ending with the ‘IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl,’ we have no shortage of slop coming our way over the next few weeks.

While I’ve already waxed poetic about why bowl games are good, actually, I will say that I’m ready to waste hours of my life watching the eminent source of “Divorced Dad Energy” [Jedd Ari Fisch] get his ass hatched by Louisville on New Year’s Day.

Until then, you’ll have to settle for my non-CFP guide to this year’s bowl games involving teams that once called the Pacific-12 Conference their home.

Enjoy the slop, mis amigos.

[Note: We’ll do a full CFP breakdown once the 1st round games wrap up and we know who ASU, Boise State and Oregon will play in the quarterfinals.]

Last Week: 2-1 Straight-up/2-1 ATS

Season: 89-45 Straight-up/65-64 ATS

TBD (Arizona State/Boise State/Oregon all have 1st round byes)

Spread: Cal -4

Our Pick: UNLV wins, 17-14

The California Golden Bears have been mediocre at best this year on the field, limping their way through a second straight 6-6 regular season under the East Bay’s finest Football Accountant, Justin Wilcox.

Sadly for Bears fans, Cal and their lovable ‘Calgorithm’ have not been able to overcome whatever god Wilcox pissed off, with the Bears losing all but one of their games by nine points or less.

Come Dec. 18, I’m going with the Barry Odom-less UNLV Rebels to pack it in after a great season off the Strip, with Cal winning what will amount to an affront to god in front of thousands of apathetic sports fans inside SoFi Stadium to finish the year 7-6 in Berkeley.

Spread: NIU -2.5

Our Pick: NIU wins, 34-27

Northern Illinois gave us one of the best memories (or meme-ories I guess) of the 2024 season when they went to South Bend and handed Notre Dame their overrated asses.

From there, things haven’t gone to plan for the Huskies, with losses to Buffalo, NC State, Toledo, Ball State and Miami (Ohio version).

Of those losses, only one was by double-digits, though, with NIU losing to the Redhawks by 11 points in the team’s penultimate game of the season, speaking to the Huskies’ bad luck (similar to Cal, actually).

Come Dec. 23, I see NIU looking at the 14 degree weather and slate-gray skies of Boise as a midsummer like treat, smashing a frozen Fresno State team into the ground like a tent stake in a surprisingly high scoring game inside the Potato Factory.

Spread: Syracuse -6.5

Our Pick: Syracuse wins, 28-17

A few of my Wazzu buddies are openly asking head coach Jake Dickert to take a new job, which says all you need to know about how the Cougars ‘Couged it up’ to close the year.

That’s because Wazzu managed to snatch defeat from victory’s grasp not once, not twice, but thrice against the Mountain West’s little siblings of the downtrodden known as New Mexico, Oregon State (they still count, dammit) and Wyoming, who CSU managed to rout for god’s sake.

Fran Brown is a goddamn football sorcerer, turning Syracuse around from an lol worthy factory of football disappointment into the little engine that could this fall, with a road win over UNLV and victories over teams like Virginia Tech, Cal and Miami (the most lol worthy of them all) in their back pocket.

Come Dec. 27, I expect Brown to fire up the Orange to run through a brick wall in excitement, paving the Cougars into the shoddy turf inside San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium like the craggy surface you’d find on Interstate 8 a tight spiral away from the south end zone.

Spread: Texas A&M -2.5

Our Pick: Texas A&M wins, 24-10

This has to be the funniest matchup of bowl season, as Lincoln Riley and his “we don’t want to be here, man” USC Trojans get rewarded with a trip to Sin City to play a Texas A&M team that’s fresh off an ugly loss at home to Texas.

Long story short: I expect the nation’s leading pretend military academy to snap a chunk of the Trojans’ flesh off as soon as the opening whistle sounds, setting the tone for what should be a 60-minute ass-kicking that’ll leave USC fans digging through their couch cushions to find the money needed to send Riley off to whichever Flyover Country college needs an image overhaul in 2025.

Spread: Miami OH -3

Our Pick: CSU wins, 24-13

As someone who thinks that Barstool Sports (and Dave Portnoy) should be shot out of the nearest cannon into a brick wall, I’ll just say that I’m here for any bowl game that’s not affiliated with the nation’s leading source of toxic masculinity.

That’s why I’m over the moon that Kym Adair and the chuckleheads in charge of the Arizona Bowl came to their senses and dumped Dave for our nation’s greatest pitchman … Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.

Does Snoop Dogg have any connection to Tucson or Arizona in general? What are you, a cop?

Snoop Dogg is universally beloved and most importantly not the subject of a laundry list’s worth of sexual misconduct investigations, which makes this year’s Arizona Bowl a must-watch affair.

P.S.: Also, my alma mater is making their first bowl appearance since 2017 in America’s Finest City (Tucson), so that’s pretty neat.

P.P.S.: I think CSU’s anemic offense escapes with a comfortable win over Miami (Ohio version), mainly because the Rams defense can bite a hole through any offense unlucky enough to play against them right now.

Spread: CU -3

Our Pick: BYU wins, 48-41

Our nation’s leading insurance and knock-off sunglass salesman came up short of his ploy to hijack the bloated CFP in his second season in Boulder.

Fret not, though, dear reader, as the man they call Prime is off to San Antonio to try and wax BYU’s cougar tail in an intra-Big 12 matchup.

I’m expecting zero defense to be played in this contest, with Shedeur Sanders throwing for roughly 700 yards and six touchdowns, while CU’s defense runs around like Spongebob & Patrick did in that one episode back in the day.

TL;DR: BYU remembers the Alamo just well enough to flee with a hard-fought win over Colorado, with Deion announcing his departure for Dallas exactly five minutes after the trophy gets handed off to Kalani Sitake.

Spread: Louisville -5.5

Our Pick: Louisville wins, 31-13

Our final non-CFP bowl game involves America’s Sweetheart himself, as Jedd Fisch is banished to El Paso to get his ass whacked by the Louisville Cardinals.

Come New Year’s Day, America’s working class won’t be the only ones fighting a killer hangover, as the Washington Huskies will spend 60 minutes getting blown off the field in America’s Dustiest City by an ACC team coached by a football coach that actually knows what he’s doing.

[Same Note, Different Place ICYMI The 1st Time: We’ll do a full CFP breakdown once the 1st round games wrap up and we know who ASU, Boise State and Oregon will play in the quarterfinals.]