The bowl season wraps up on New Year’s Day – the College Football Playoff national title matchup technically isn’t a bowl – with five games. Is it odd that the NCAA stages bowl games after its semifinals? Yes, but at least the organization didn’t mess with the New Year’s Day annual extravaganza.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The New Year begins with No. 18 Mississippi State of the SEC facing Iowa of the Big Ten in the Outback Bowl from Tampa. The Hawkeyes will be without one the nation’s best tight ends for the game in Noah Fant as he’s skipping to prepare for the NFL draft. Then again, Fant might not be the best tight end on his own team. Hawkeyes sophomore T.J. Hockenson won the Mackey Award given to the country’s best at the position, and he’s playing. MSU is -7 and covered its past four games as a favorite.

The Fiesta Bowl from Glendale, Arizona, features No. 11 LSU of the SEC and No. 8 Central Florida (AAC), which for the second year in a row couldn’t break its way into the College Football Playoff despite an unbeaten record. Just a shame that a program on a 25-game winning streak can’t compete for a title. The Knights are without star quarterback McKenzie Milton as he suffered a serious knee injury in the regular-season finale. They are 7.5-point underdogs to LSU, and UCF is 5-1 ATS in its past six as a dog.