A few weeks ago I posted my top ten bowls of 2009-2010.  I will be posting extended previews for some of them.  The first of those is in a half hour, and I feel comfortable turning most of the necessary analysis to friend of GatorsFirst BlatantHomerism, a college football blog with a Sooner lean.

You may want to completely ignore my bowl picks, as I've been pretty set in last place of the GatorsFirst Bowl Pick'em league for some time now.

Anyway, onto the bowl preview...

The number one thing I generally take into consideration with bowl picks is emotion.  At least last season and the seasons before that.  And predicting the emotion of a collective of 18-22 year olds (or 27 year olds who just got out of jail, if you're talking about Miami football for much of their 'glory days') is no easy task.  I have no idea why I decided to ignore it this year, but it's probably also why I'm getting destroyed in the bowl pick'em, where I usually do much better in bowl picks than I do in regular-season contests.

With that in mind, I took Oklahoma in this game.  Emotion would be an odd justification on the surface, but bear with me on this one.  The Sooners started out the year thinking National Title, at least until BYU (yeah, the same one that got housed by FSU in Provo) ended that (and essentially Sam Bradford's repeat Heisman campaign) in Arlington, TX.  So how can a dead-man walking season end in a bowl game in El Paso, with temperatures in the 40s, and be considered an emotional advantage?

Oklahoma is a well-coached program (memo to delusional Florida fans: he's not coming to Florida. He had two other opportunities.  Wake up call: You're starting to sound like the Domers and their pursuit of Urban, or Wildcats fan's obsession with Billy D).  Their consistency with Big XII championships, if not reflected in recent bowl victories, has demonstrated that.  But even more recently, they were able to thwart (#12 ranked at the time) rival Oklahoma State's BCS bowl hopes not just by winning, but by winning convincingly- and pitching a shutout.  If that's not a statement of a program ripe for a rebound season, I don't know what is.  Many times you see the extra practices of the bowl season become the launching point for the next season, and this should be an extension of the statement which closed the regular season.

From Stanford's point of view, they had a very good season, with some incredible victories (apologies to my Duck-fan in-laws, but you're in the Rose Bowl so you should be over it).  You were probably thinking the bowl game represents the peak of an rising wave of emotion with a well-publicized late season push.  But remember that after back-to-back victories where they hung 50 on (then) top ten teams (Oregon and @USC), they lost their huge rivalry game (Cal) and closed by beating Notre Dame, which at this point is like beating other 6-6, non-bowl bound teams like Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette.  That Cal loss is bigger than most outside the West Coast would think- it's usually the one game either school's fan base cares about, and Cal was without the concussed Jahvid Best.  This is not a good sign that Stanford is the type of program that would come out strong after the long layoff that is a hallmark of the bowl season.

Additionally, there is some degree of distraction with Stanford's Head Coach, Jim Harbaugh.  He's been named as a candidate in many of the coaching searches at more traditional football powers, which can't help his team's bowl preparations.  Sure, Bob Stoops has been named for a couple jobs also, but which teams' players are more likely to think these rumors could come true?  I'm betting Stanford, which is another reason why I'm taking Oklahoma.

For smarter anaylsis of this game than I could hope to provide, check out Blatant Homerism's What to Watch in addition to their game preview.