Football degenerates, unite. It's bowl season!

Although the NFL continues to infringe on our glorious month, December remains the best month on the college football calendar.

Need a little background noise to pull you through a Monday afternoon or Tuesday night? Bowl season has you covered. Want to get your weekend started early with a tripleheader on Thursday or enjoy another all-Saturday slate of college ball? You know where to find it.

Rest assured, B/R will be sharing updates along the way.

As the postseason nears, our expert panel—David Kenyon, Adam Kramer, Morgan Moriarty, Joel Reuter and Brad Shepard—have convened to offer a prediction about the busy schedule of bowls.

One important note: These predictions are based on the 35 FBS games outside of the College Football Playoff.

Kenyon: 2 1st-Time Bowl Winners

When we talk about expansion, the growth of the College Football Playoff—for good reason—is typically our first thought.

Several teams have joined the Football Bowl Subdivision in recent years, though. Two of them, James Madison and Sam Houston, are seeking the first-ever bowl victory for their programs this December.

My pick: 2-for-2.

Now, that would be easy to suggest if both squads were favored. James Madison holds that label in its Boca Raton Bowl matchup with Conference USA runner-up Western Kentucky. At last check, according to DraftKings, the line is leaning nine points in JMU's direction.

Sam Houston, on the other hand, is a six-point underdog in the New Orleans Bowl opposite Georgia Southern. But if the stingy Sam Houston defense plays to its standard, the Bearkats' offense—flawed as it's been in 2024—should find running lanes against a penetrable GS defense.

If you think bowl season does not matter, just watch how joyful the celebrations are if JMU or Georgia Southern win.

Kramer: ACC Puts on a Bowl Showcase

Down the stretch, the ACC served as a bit of a punching bag.

Clemson, which managed to steal a playoff bid thanks to a superb performance against SMU in the ACC title game, helped change that narrative some. Either way, the performance of FSU, Miami's demise and an incredibly slow start overall made this an odd year for the conference.

But that changes in the bowl season.

Although the fates of Clemson and SMU are a bit murky in the playoff, the rest of the conference has a chance to flip the narrative around.

Teams like Cal (still weird to type), Pittsburgh, Syracuse, North Carolina, NC State and Louisville are all favorites in their games, and others inside the conference have a real shot to win. The matchups are favorable, and the narrative that emerges after the fact could be as well.

At a time when Bill Belichick is willing to join the conference, the ACC is positioned to have a dominant bowl season. A playoff upset by SMU at Penn State or Clemson at Texas wouldn't hurt, either.

Moriarty: Florida Seals Preseason Hype

It's pretty remarkable that Florida has a chance to finish with an eight-win season in 2024.

You have to tip your cap to head coach Billy Napier, who entered 2024 squarely on the hot seat after a pair of back-to-back losing seasons in Gainesville.

Staring down one of the hardest schedules in college football, it looked like Napier's days were numbered, starting 1-2 on the season and sitting at 4-5 to open November. But with upset wins over LSU and Ole Miss at home and a dominating win over rival Florida State, the Gators can reach eight wins with a win over Tulane in the Gasparilla Bowl.

True freshman quarterback DJ Lagway—who took over for an injured Graham Mertz in the middle of the season—has been sensational, even while dealing with a lingering hamstring injury.

Florida's 2025 recruiting class also turned around in a hurry—rising to 11th nationally per 247Sports—after Napier successfully flipped a few blue-chip recruits late in the cycle. If the Gators win against Tulane, expect some major preseason hype to be pumped into Gainesville for 2025.

Reuter: Hawkins Stakes Claim to OU Job

The transfer portal is in full swing, and one of the top names among quarterbacks now looking for a new home is former 5-star recruit Jackson Arnold.

After sitting behind Dillon Gabriel in 2023, Arnold began the 2024 season as Oklahoma's starter. He found some early success in non-conference play but was benched in favor of true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. during the team's Week 4 loss to Tennessee.

Arnold then spent the next two games against Auburn and Texas on the bench before returning to the starting role, finishing with 1,421 passing yards while tallying 12 touchdowns and three interceptions.

The Sooners will assess their options in the transfer portal, but Hawkins now has a chance to stake his claim to the 2025 starting job with a strong performance against Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl.

He had 154 total yards and a passing score in relief against Tennessee, and he beat Auburn the following week with 161 passing yards, 69 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. He did struggle against the Texas defense in his second start, but plenty of good quarterbacks were silenced by the Longhorns' secondary this year.

Here's predicting Hawkins shows out with a huge bowl game performance and convinces Brent Venables to be a bit less aggressive in pursuing an outside option for next year.

Shepard: SEC Runs the (Non-CFP) Table

Can we please stop with the SEC bias now?

The conference everybody loves to hate only got three teams in the College Football Playoff, and that sound you hear is Alabama fans still crying foul. The lobbying from South Carolina's Shane Beamer and Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin fell on deaf ears, too.

Some may think that will lead to disinterested bowl appearances. Nah.

This is a bunch of really good matchups for SEC teams with the only real concerns (on paper) looking like Oklahoma-Navy and Vanderbilt-Georgia Tech. If the Hawkins-led Sooners and the upstart Commodores pull through, the SEC is going to run the table.

The biggest story will be young upstarts DJ Lagway (Florida) and LaNorris Sellers (South Carolina) leading two of the nation's hottest teams to wins and fueling—as Morgan mentioned at UF—the offseason hype train.

Arkansas is favored in the Liberty Bowl against Texas Tech, Texas A&M takes on USC in Las Vegas, LSU meets high-tempo Baylor and Mizzou faces Iowa. The aforementioned Crimson Tide play Michigan, and Ole Miss faces Duke without quarterback Maalik Murphy.

All those matchups favor the SEC. I'm going with a sweep.

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