Bowl Musings 12/29

Just one for tomorrow...



UCLA -4 v Temple: At first glance, you might look at the stats for this game and comw to the conclusion that a disinterested UCLA team might be ripe for the picking. They spent the lion's share of the season getting outgained severely, and now they play a Temple team that had all kinds of success against it's own MAC slate this year. However, this a good case of schedule strength. There certainly exists a possibility where UCLA will stagger into the Washington DC, all the way on the other side of the country and lay an egg, but I don't think the circumstances will bear that out. If UCLA was playing in their 5th straight bowl game, and there were high expectations coming into the season, this might be a snoozer for UCLA, in which case Temple can jump up and surprise them. That's not the case. UCLA missed out on a bowl game last year, and this is their first one under Neuheisel, so I think they will be well prepared and eager to start building on next year. Also, in these kinds of games, the underdog needs to have an offense that can cause problems for the opponent. In this case, Temple can't throw the ball, and relies completely on a straight forward run game. they played only one BCS conference team this year(Penn State) and were completely shut down. The difference in athleticism will be too great for temple to be able to smash mouth it on UCLA. If they ran a tricky spread or something, they might get UCLA frustrated and have some legs toward an upset. I really don't see a scenario where UCLA will let them physically dominate. maybe Al Golden has some tricks up his sleeves in the passing game, but since his team was ranked 106th in the country in pass efficiency against a MAC slate, i'm guessing he won't. Like I said, there's potential for a disinterested favorite/upstart on fire type game here, but the matchup just doesn't fit the mold. i think UCLA handles them in this one.


The Champs sports Bowl is a total tossup, with a slight edge to Miami because they are playing in Flroda and because Wisconsin's pass defense looks to not match up well with the Miami attack. Despite that, though, I'm taking the 4(bought it) with the Badgers. #1, Miami is very unlikely to have success running on Wisconsin, and the Badgers are very good at putting pressure on the QB, ranking in the top 20 nationally in sacks. jacory Harris has been harrassed a lot this year...their 108th in sacks allowed. I also think they'll have some success with play action when the Canes try to load up to stop John Clay. enough positives to take the 4 I think.