Yahoo! Sports runs an annual bowl pick 'em contest in which fans can compete against each other to see who is the best and brightest when it comes to picking winners in the various bowl games in a given holiday season. One fun feature is where Yahoo! compiles all the bowl game picks to and provides a chart to show what the American public is expecting in each game. In picking each game, fans provide a certain amount of confidence points to give different weights to each game and thus a points system based on a given win.
In the 2011 Orange Bowl, 79% of picks have been for the Stanford Cardinal over the Virginia Tech Hokies. That margin is twelfth among all the bowl games. The average confidence point total assigned to the Cardinal is 15.6 is fourth among all the bowls, which indicates that the people picking Stanford are feeling very confident. It's interesting to note that while Virginia Tech is only getting 21% of the picks, the confidence point total among those people is 12.6, which is rather high. I'd imagine a lot of Virginia Tech grads and people in ACC country are going with the Hokies, thus the high confidence among a small number.
San Francisco will be hosting the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on January 9, 2010 and Nevada is an overwhelming favorite against Boston College, with 92% of people picking the Wolfpack. The 92% pickage is tied for third highest with Okahoma State in the Alamo Bowl against Arizona. Aside from convenience of location, I'd imagine that 9 1/2 point spread is enticing for people picking Nevada.
In the BCS National championship game, Pac-10 champion Oregon is a bit of an underdog and it looks like the bowl picks are going against them for now. They're three point dogs and right now 59% of people have picked Auburn with a sizable 15.1 confidence average points. People picking Oregon are giving them 12.4 confidence points.
As mentioned above, Oklahoma State is getting a lot of love against Arizona in the Alamo Bowl. At the same time, the Cowboys are only getting 11.6 confidence points, so take that for what it's worth.
Finally, Pac-10 third place team Washington finds themselves as fairly huge underdogs against Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. 97% of teams are picking the Big 12 runner-up. That leaves Stanford as the only favorite among all the Pac-10 schools