Cal Golden Bears vs. Hawaii Rainbow Warriors Hawaii Bowl prediction, preview (8:00pm ET)
Most people are settling in for Christmas Eve with some Eggnog and a good holiday movie, but that just doesn’t cut it for all of us. Not when you know the Hawaii Bowl is about to kickoff and we can be celebrating by betting college football.
This year’s game is a bit unique in the sense that we also get a home team in the game, with the Rainbow Warriors essentially hosting the Golden Bears. The market indicated that home field should be pretty valuable in this game, with Hawaii opening the underdog and flipping to the short favorite.
Cal is undoubtable a talented team, but was all over the place to finish off the season. The Bears took down Louisville and SMU as double-digit underdogs, but also lost outright as a favorite to Stanford. Cal was a solid 3-3 SU/ATS in road games this season, but a trip to Hawaii has proven tough for most this season.
The ‘Bows went 6-1 SU/ATS on island this season, with the lone loss coming by two points to Fresno State back in September. The big missing piece for Hawaii in this one will be Jackson Harris, who had nearly 1,000 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns this season. After transferring in from Stanford, Harris is back in the portal and won’t play in the game.
While Harris is probably the best player ruled out of the game so far, Cal is missing more significant pieces than Hawaii. The Bears have a handful of injuries and a couple of potential opt outs to monitor. Both quarterbacks will be playing in this one, so it does set up to be a pretty good game with both teams at least close to full strength.
That said, I think getting this game at home on Christmas Eve takes an already significant home field advantage and amplifies it. I’ll play Hawaii at a reasonable moneyline price to win the Hawaii Bowl.
