whats up men.........hope everyone is fully recovered from NYE and ready to hit the last leg of this bowl season!! Thanks for the kind words everyone, I guess that is why anyone takes the time to post their write ups is to get some kudo's, but I also do it to share my experience/knowledge of this hobby i've come to love over the past 15 years in hopes we can all benefit from it. Hope everyone ends up in the + when it's over. It's a marathon, not a sprint; however, I say when your hot, hit it, when your not, back off. Here we go:
so, nobody has had more of, or a bigger distraction that penn st. all of that was capped off by mcgloin and drake fighting, now neither will be playing today. Houston had a bit of distraction with sumlin, but they've stayed in house with Levine taking over and he will be their coach as they head in to the big east, so i think they shored that up real quick. both teams thought they would be somewhere else, but I think both will ultimately be happy to be here, penn st just wants to play football, Houston want's to get that nasty southern miss taste out of their mouth and send Keenum off right, plus they get to try and do it to a big 10 which is always motivation for a non AQ team. keenum v bolden, beal and company v redd, uh receivers get the nod over penn st in that dept, but penn st gets the defensive nod. we all know houston will try and spread them out and take their wide open pass game to penn st. In the end, I do think Houston has the horses and experience to beat Penn St today. houston hasn't seen a defense as good as penn st, last penn st saw a good offense was wisconsin and they were blown out, and if penn st defense can't stop houston, they will not be able to keep up with them on the scoreboard.
Houston -7 (-120)These two squads are very similar
defensively. Both squads rank in the top five of total defense and in
the top 15 against both the run and the pass. Both squads are off of
disappointing efforts as each allowed 42 points in the conference
championship losses. Both squads can get after the opposing QB. Georgia
was second in the SEC with 34 sacks while MSU led the Big Ten with 41
sacks.
Pretty even on defense, and i think pretty even on offense. i like getting points in even match ups. I really think this is as even as it gets. Georgia may have a slight edge, but a more experienced qb on msu side, even though their back up may get a few snaps today. one thing missing from the msu seniors portfolio is a bowl win, they've tried before, against sec teams, no dice. they have a chance today to re-live their 08' bowl loss to these bulldogs, Cousins,
and WR's Cunningham and Martin all played in that game.its time to shit or get off the pot for michigan st. they can score and they can play defense, i think they have as good a chance as they are going to have to get a bowl win and one over an SEC team today, not because of their opponent, but because of themselves. n addition to ranking as the fifth best overall in the country, the
defense has made its living this season by taking the ball away. The
Spartans lead the Big Ten in interceptions with 16, and they recovered
six fumbles for a turnover margin of plus-7, good for second in the
conference. They also lead the Big Ten with 41 sacks. That should be a big part of today's game considering Aaron Murray
has thrown 12 interceptions and only is completing 58.8 percent of his
passes. Murray has the benefit of
playing against some great defenses in the SEC. But today will be no
walk in the park as the Spartans feature five players with three or more
sacks and two defensive backs with four interceptions apiece.I like the match up, I like sparty defense to make a stand today and get dantonio his bowl win.
Michigan State +3.5 (-120)another sec/big10 match up, and again, 2 pretty even teams as far as statistical comparisons go, both are 6-6. florida's defense has been pretty damn good all year and I think they can help bog down ohio st offense. I won't get too hypocritical by pointing out florida sched vs ohio st sched as i'm taking a mix of both big10 and sec schools today, but florida did have the "luxury" of playing lsu, bama, georgia, south car.....neither of these offenses are really any good, i think florida's top 10 defense will be able to be the difference as florida tries to stick it to ohio st and as much as they say they don't care, they want urban meyer to know where his bread was buttered for a while. When Will
Muschamp called out his team following its loss to Florida State back in
November, he couldn't have known he was providing another storyline for
Monday's Gator Bowl.Remember what he said? "We're
a soft football team. That's the bottom line. I told our guys, ‘We're
not a physically tough team and we're not a mentally tough team.' And
self-evaluation is hard sometimes, but that's the facts. That's the
facts. Hard to say it. I've been called a lot of things in my life, but
soft's not one of them. And we are."
Muschamp promised a tough bowl camp. florida is one team that always just has tremendous speed at the skill position and for all that is the make up of these two teams, ohio st has to contend with florida's speed, especially with rainy and demps in the backfield. I think the gators come up big today in jaxonville as the buckeyes just might be trying to individually audition for meyer a little bit in this one.
Florida -1 (-120)