Bowl season cheat sheet: Coaching trends, mismatches, opt-outs, and more

When bowl lines were released, we wrote about openers to bet and outlined potentially significant moneyline movers. A week later, the dust has mostly settled, and it's time to survey the on-field matchups. Who has the tactical advantage? Which coaches' teams have historically overachieved? Plus, which big-time players won't be in action?

Biggest SP+ discrepancies

SP+ ratings are part of the recipe for bowl lines. While overall ratings are already built into the point spread, here are the biggest ratings discrepancies in terms of good offenses facing bad defenses, and vice versa.

The Fenway Bowl offers a rare double mismatch with two offenses that are much better than their defensive counterparts. They may not be able to take advantage of the Green Monster, but both teams should dent the scoreboard if it's anything close to baseball weather.

Some bad offenses will be on display this bowl season and, unsurprisingly, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, and Iowa are all underdogs.

Coaches to bet

Coaches have different goals during bowl season; even the same coach may shift their aim from year to year. However, it's worth seeing whose teams typically exceed expectations.

Sample-size issues affect a lot of the data here. Swinney has piled up the postseason games thanks to a couple of two-game bowl seasons, though many of those ATS wins came as an underdog with Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence under center. This year, Clemson's motivation in the Cheez-It Bowl is a significant question mark.

Coaches to fade

Do these coaches tend to be more interested in evaluating young players with an eye toward next year, or do they just not have the desire to create a custom game plan for their opponent? We can't know for sure, but it's worth pondering before placing a bet.

The list of poor bowl coaches is shorter, for good reason - if you underperform in bowl season, you don't last long. Holgorsen and Leach have poor postseason records, yet they were still considered desirable hires by their new schools.

Significant player absences (opt-outs, transfers)

It used to be that only high-end NFL prospects would opt out of bowl games to avoid risking injury, while anyone who wasn't sure to be drafted in the top 10 would look to showcase their talents and boost their stock.

Now more players are bailing for the draft, and the transfer portal has introduced another reason for absences. Key players, including starting quarterbacks, are entering the transfer portal, and some are leaving their teams high and dry at the most critical position in sports.

If you're reading the tea leaves provided by the line movement for these games, Kenny Pickett seems unlikely to play, but that's yet to be announced, and he may want to appear in a New Year's Six bowl for Pitt after so much time there. Quarterback Jake Haener's status for Fresno State has been somewhat unclear as well, dropping the line to -11 against UTEP.

Notable trends

These schools are coming in hot this postseason:

Matt Russell is a betting writer for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on Twitter @mrussauthentic.