Bowl season is my favorite part of the year. Twenty-one days of a daily, glorious, bad-college-football orgy, punctuated only by empty Sundays when none of the purest form of football is played. This week is the orgiest of them all, too, since every day contains multiple games between teams that are trying to convince themselves that a 5-loss season really isn't as bad as it sounds.

Kyle, MaconDawg, and Spears have done a yeoman's job of steering you through the MACtion and SUN BELT-ion portion of bowl season, but I am the lucky one that drew the honor of tackling the crown jewel. No, not the National Championship Game. We all know that Nick Saban is already gone to the Penn State job, and LSU is going to pound the Crimson Tide into merely a crimson trickle on January 9.

No, the crown jewel of the bowl season is, and always has been, New Year's Day*, my friends. Since the beginning of (college football) time, teams have always striven to be good enough to be invited to a New Year's Day* bowl game. It is the one day a year when there is college football on the TV all day and fans are free to sit back, relax, and enjoy the reverie without the distraction of turkey and dressing or distributing gifts amongst your various friends and family members.

So without further ado, I bring you the following previews and picks for 5 of the 6 New Year's Day* bowls, and the traditional SEC** crown jewel, the Sugar Bowl. I hope you enjoy the following analysis, but please, Don't Bet On It!

We'll be ensconced in no-college-football wasteland pretty soon, so enjoy these bowls while you have them! (Via)

* - This season, the term "New Year's Day" has been legally changed to refer to January 2, 2012. "Legally" in the sense that "it's legal at Dawg Sports," that is.

** - For the 2011-2012 bowl season, the term "SEC" has been expanded to include games featuring the Virginia Tech Hokies, who are really too good of a program to be considered part of the ACC.

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Now that the 2012 football schedule has been released -- be sure to read Kyle's initial thoughts and further analysis, if you haven't already -- and vineyarddawg has put some Dawgs on notice for the Outback Bowl, there's not much football news out there right now... except for the 923,234,542 bowl games to be played in the next two weeks.

In my first set of bowl picks, I went 2-3 against the spread. Ludakit managed to go 3-2 against the spread in his picks. I mention these records to underscore why this feature has its name. I'm not even the best football forecaster on this site, so when I predict the outcome of a football game, Don't Bet On It!

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I hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays so far. We are now in the in the thick of the bowl season, and, more importantly, we are officially in the slowest work week of the year for everyone outside of retail. It's the perfect time of year to catch up on emails, clean out your desk, and sneak out of work early to watch sparsely attended match-ups between 7-5 teams whose mascots you can't remember.

I'll precede our usual disclaimer with a little disclosure: I prepared this set of picks while on a flight to New Orleans. The free wifi ran out before the free drinks did, so these forecasts may be a little more uneven than usual. Given my shoddy track record and this additional datum, I urge you to follow this sound advice: Don't Bet On It!

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Bowl season is nearly upon us! This is truly my favorite time of year. Say what you will about the relative merits of a playoff vis-à-vis crowning a national champion. I will never support a system that jeopardizes even one of the thirty-five (THIRTY-FIVE!!!) bowl games we get to enjoy over the next three weeks. Think about it: even a thirty-two team playoff wouldn’t provide the sheer quantity of football that we see under the current system. For the true college football junkie, this is the last big bender we get before we’re reduced to scraping up the resin of recruiting and scrounging up the shake of spring practice. This is it, my friends. Enjoy every minute of it.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be predicting the outcome of each of the season’s bowl games. We always warn you not to wager any real money on our picks, and with good reason: my 2-4 record over championship weekend brought my ledger for the season down to 17-18-1 against the spread. Accordingly, I don’t offer these football forecasts for any purpose other than to give you some semi-plausible excuse for why watching the SummersEve.com bowl is more important than helping out with the dishes at your fourth-cousin-in-law’s party. Will anyone buy it? Don’t Bet On It!

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We've already looked at the National Games of Interest, which, honestly, was pretty difficult list to compile this week. I don't know about you, but I'm a little preoccupied by the Dawgs' SEC title tilt in Atlanta. Nevertheless, although none of the other games this weekend have much appeal to the Bulldog nation, most of them at least have some national or local appeal. But not all of them. There's one game that I'm pretty sure not even the fans of one of the participants will be watching. That game is this week's National Game of Disinterest, and it is...

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Did y'all know that football games are being played this weekend? No, really. I thought that we were just crowning LSU national champions on Saturday, too, but it turns out that there are actually a couple of games left on the schedule. Heck, some of them might even be pretty good.

That means that it's time to predict the outcome of some of these football games. Last week, I went a respectable 5-2 against the spread in the SEC, bringing my conference ledger to 10-5-1. My national picks, however, were not so respectable, as I went 1-3 against the spread, bringing that mark to 5-9. If math isn't your strong suit, that means that my overall record against the spread is 15-14-1. Is this the week that I finally get my act together with national games and bring my overall tally in line with my SEC picks? Don't Bet On It!

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Despite the loss of our legendary voice earlier this week, the Bulldog nation has a lot to be thankful for this year. After an 0-2, the Red and Black have reeled off nine straight wins. We beat Florida, Auburn, and Tennessee in the same season for the first time since 1982. Mark Richt has secured the fourth Eastern division title of his career. Hopefully, you're also thankful for heeding our advice not to wager on any of my college football predictions. I once again went 2-3 in my national picks last week, bringing my ledger for the season to 4-6. Are my picks this week going to improve that mark? Don't Bet On It!

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Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! By now you should be done dealing with traffic and be about ready give thanks for all of the good things in your life by over-indulging on turkey, stuffing, and football. Last week I went 2-1 against the spread, bringing my ledger for the season to 5-3-1. It may seem that I know a little something about college football, but, in all likelihood, I'm just due for a serious regression to the mean. With a full slate of seven SEC contests to pick this week, there's plenty of room for error. While I hope you enjoy these weekly picks, I also hope you take our customary advice with respect to each and Don't Bet On It!

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