A college football bowl season unlike any other will conclude the 2024 season, capped by the first 12-team College Football Playoff to crown the national champion. The months of December and January will feature 47 games, including 11 in the playoffs. The season will culminate with the CFP National Championship Game on Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

During bowl season, a popular contest is bowl confidence. The concept is simple: Pick the straight-up winner of each of the 47 games and rank them in order from most confident pick (No. 47) to least confident (No. 1). If your most confident pick is correct, you will receive 47 points. If your second most confident pick wins, you will receive 46. This goes all the way down to your least confident pick, which is worth only one point. Your final score will be determined after all 47 games have been played.

Multiple factors make picking winners during bowl season more difficult than in the regular season. The first is motivation. Every year multiple teams that have endured long regular seasons get to the bowl game, which is essentially a glorified exhibition game, and play as if they didn't want to be there. Teams that just miss out on the playoffs, for example, often struggle finding incentive to play a game after having their title hopes dashed.

Another factor is player availability. With the transfer portal having opened on Monday, thousands of players already have chosen to transfer to another school for next season. In almost all of those situations, those players are not welcome to play in the bowl game for their current team. In addition, dozens of NFL-bound players choose to opt out of playing in the bowl game to avoid risking injury before April's NFL Draft.

I've studied all 47 bowl matchups, which included finding what players are transferring and opting out, picked the winner of each game and ranked them from most confident to least confident.

What team is Menez most confident will win its bowl game? And how has he ranked all 47 winners? ... Join SportsLine right now to see Gene Menez's bowl confidence picks, all from the former Sports Illustrated college football writer and editor!