Gedetrattting Started
First thing I did was grab the full bowl schedule. Found a list online, printed it out actually. Yeah, old school pen and paper sometimes feels right for this kinda thing. Makes it feel more deliberate than just clicking boxes on a screen. Spread the papers out on the kitchen table. Coffee was essential, lots of games to go through.
The Picking Process
So, how did I actually pick 'em? It wasn't rocket science, trust me. Mostly looked at a few things:
- Records: Obvious starting point. Who won more games? Simple enough.
- Late Season Performance: Did they finish strong or limp into the postseason? Sometimes a team with a slightly worse record got hot at the end, and that matters.
- Matchups (kind of): Didn't overthink it, but sometimes you just see two teams and think, "Yeah, Team A's style just beats Team B's." No deep analysis, more like a gut check.
- Who Cares More?: Okay, this one's pure guesswork. Some teams seem genuinely fired up for a bowl, others look like they're already on vacation. Tried to factor that feeling in, crazy as it sounds.
I just went down the list, game by game. Wrote my pick next to each matchup. Some were easy calls, took like two seconds. Others? Man, I stared at a few matchups for a good couple of minutes, just weighing the records, maybe remembering a game I watched earlier in the season. For those toss-ups, sometimes I just went with the cooler mascot. Hey, gotta have some fun with it, right?
No spreadsheets this year. Just the printed list and a pen. Felt less like work that way. Filled the whole thing out over maybe an hour or so, couple cups of coffee later.
Final Thoughts
Got the list all filled out now. Tucked it away. It’s less about being perfect and more about just having a horse in the race for all these games I’ll probably end up watching anyway. It’s a tradition, something to chat about with friends, see who got closer. Honestly, I'll probably forget half my picks until the games actually start. We'll see how it goes. Should be fun.
