Vegas College Football Bowl Predictions Part I (Pre-Christmas): Utah-Colorado State & More

Dec 24, 2013; Honolulu, HI, USA; A general view of empty parking spaces approximately one hour before the start of the Hawaii Bowl between the Boise State Broncos and Oregon State Beavers at Aloha Stadium. Second level bowl games have struggled with attendance and many have turned to social media to sell tickets. Mandatory Credit: Marco Garcia-USA TODAY Sports

It’s finally here. The college football bowl season this year obviously has a unique atmosphere with the College Football Playoff starting. But before we even get to that, we have a long list of bowl games to sort through, starting on Saturday, Dec. 20. Honestly, there was really no layoff this year if you think about it.

After all, Army-Navy was played on Dec. 13, and the final week of college football was Dec. 6. Okay, so for most teams it was Nov. 30, but that is still only a three-week layoff.

As we get set to bring you our Vegas Bowl Predictions for the season, we are breaking them up into five parts. The first part covers the set of bowl games before Christmas.

Our second part of bowl predictions will cover the games between Christmas and New Year’s Day that aren’t part of the New Year’s Six.

Our third set of predictions will cover the New Year’s Six Non-Playoff bowl games, and finally, we’ll bring you our College Football Playoff projections.

The first set of bowl games is naturally loaded with a bunch of unranked mid-majors. But hey, they’re still worth watching. And Utah-Colorado State is a match-up between a hyped up mid-major and one Power Five team.

So it’s not all bad.

Let’s take a look at our bowl game predictions leading up to Friday, Dec. 26.

Next: Begin Slideshow With New Orleans Bowl Prediction: Nevada vs. Louisiana-Lafayette