Colorado vs. Alabama: Independence Bowl Free Pick: Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Free Sports Picks, NCAA Football Picks December 28th, 2007
Independence Bowl Free Pick: Colorado +3.5 (-110)
Sunday Dec 30 ‘07 8:00p
If your appetite for football wasn’t taken care of with the NFL’s Week 17 slate, we’ve got a bowl game going tonight as the Colorado Buffaloes and Alabama Crimson Tide collide for just the third time in each program’s existence.
Colorado enters this game off a big win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers their last time out. The win was their sixth of the season, and it allowed the team to become bowl eligible. The Buffaloes regular season didn’t go quite as planned in the second season of the Dan Hawkins era, but there were some memorable moments. The comeback win over the then ranked #3 Oklahoma Sooners at home was unbelievable, and they went into Lubbock and handed the Texas Tech Red Raiders their only home loss of the season. HC Dan Hawkins son, Cody, got better as the season progressed and ended up throwing for 2686 yards with a TD/INT ratio of 19/15. RB Hugh Charles led the Buffs on the ground amassing 989 yards and 8 TDs while averaging 5.3 YPC.
Alabama closed out their regular season schedule with a tough loss in the “Iron Bowl” to Auburn. The Tide didn’t close out the last month of the season the way HC Nick Saban had envisioned. After the shocking drubbing they dished out to Tennessee at home, the Tide went on to lose to LSU, Mississippi State, Auburn, and most alarmingly, UL Monroe at home. This is a club that went into a tailspin at the end of the season, and that doesn’t bode well for them in this spot.
However, oddsmakers have tagged the SEC members as 3.5-point favorites with the ‘Total’ set at 52. Alabama went a combined 1-6 ATS this season when playing the role of favorite, and they lost 3 of those 7 games SU. As for the Buffs, they went 2-4 ATS when in the role of underdog this season, but they had a pair of huge wins as mentioned earlier over Oklahoma and Texas Tech. These teams are very even in a number of respects, so grab the points with the Buffaloes who should have a more positive psyched after finishing off the regular season on a high note.