If you are looking for detailed reports to go along with excellent bowl picks, then look no further than Matt Fargo. He spends hours going over the bowl game lines to make sure that he finds the value in the numbers so his clients can make a profit.
While neither one of these teams really deserve to be in a bowl game, here they are playing a game on Christmas Eve that few will probably watch. It is pretty well documented about the trouble Notre Dame has had winning a bowl game as it has lost nine straight trips to the postseason and has not won a bowl game since 1994. The Irish are no longer the public betting team they used to be and as a matter of fact, they are just the opposite now. That bowl losing streak is factored into this line and it shouldn’t be.
Notre Dame started strong and faltered at the end of the season, culminating in a crushing loss at USC. The Irish dropped four of their last five games but managed to outgain three of their opponents in those defeats. As a matter of fact, before the USC game, Notre Dame has outgained its last eight opponents and for the season, it finished +17.3 ypg in yardage margin with the -358 yards to USC bringing that average down even more. It could have been a better year as the Irish dropped four games by five points or less.
Hawaii ended the season with three wins in its final four games to move its record to 7-6 and lock up a spot in the Hawaii Bowl so this obviously a home game for the Warriors. After a 1-3 start to the season, the Warriors won six of their final nine games to become bowl eligible which is a great accomplishment considering Hawaii was not supposed to do much this season after losing a tom of its offense as well as its head coach. I am still not sold on the quality of some of those wins however.
Prior to playing Cincinnati, the Warriors had to win their final three games and they did just that but it was not much of a challenge. They had to defeat New Mexico St., Idaho and Washington St. to get it done and considering those three teams finished the season a combined 7-30 and of those seven wins, only six of those were against FBS teams with a win over Weber St. being the other victory. Overall, Hawaii played the 72nd ranked schedule in the country while Notre Dame played the 36th ranked slate. <b>5* Notre Dame Fighting Irish</b>