Fiesta Bowl

Michigan St gave us a solid bone job on Saturday night, so it was a losing proposition on that day. Overll, the bowl season has been pretty good...the listed musings are 13-8. Not bad, certainly better than the season.

I have to admit that I am very much looking forward to this game tonight, even though I was very disappointed in the matchup when it was announced. there are tons of angles to consider here, and I spent as much time on this game as I have any game I can remember, so I apologize for the length.....

TCU -7 v Boise St: If you want to pay around (-130) you can buy it down to 6.5, which I did to secure a middle. Early on in the Bowl Season, this spread soared to TCU-9. When i saw that, before I capped the game, I grabbed Boise, since this team has proven time and time again that they will always hang with the opposition. Take last year for instance. Boise was completely dominated by TCU in San Diego, but still found a way to lose by only a point despite getting outgained by more than 200 yards. So one would probably think that laying a TD against Boise is a rockheaded notion, especially since these two teams played last year and Boise would conceivably have the motivation edge, since it's much harder to get up for a rematch when you won the first one. However, after looking at this game very carefully, I think that TCU is the right side.I really would rather bet on Boise here, and I must admit that I originally intended to do so, but logic wins out. We'll get back to the motivation angle in a minute.

It seems to me TCU might be as good as anyone in the country. They simply do everything well, and although I don't think they are quite as good defensively as they were last year, they are great in all phases on that side of the ball. Boise is good at a lot of things as well, but whatever they are good at, TCU is better at combating. The two areas that look to be problematic for Boise are TCU's rush offense against their rush defense, and their 3rd down offense against TCU's third down defense. Last year, TCU's running backs gashed Boise for185 yards on 30 carries. Coming into that game, TCU was ranked 46th in rush offense and Boise was ranked 14th against the run. This year, TCU is ranked 6th in ypc while Boise is ranked 57th in stopping the run. If TCU is better running the ball than last year, and Boise is worse, can we expect 250 rush yards from the TCU backs, especially since TCU's pass offense is much improved and must be respected? It's pretty plausible. As for 3rd down offense, Boise is ranked 72nd in 3rd down conversions. This is against a schedule that had only 1 defense ranked in the top 50(Oregon) and only 2 in the top 70. TCU is best in the country in 3rd down conversions. It looks like Boise is going to have a hell of a time sustaining drives if they can't hit on some big plays. TCu has also been remarkably consistent this year. In every single game they played, the averaged more yards per play on offense than their opponent usually gave up, and allowed less yards per play than their opponent averaged on the year. So every one of their opponents had a "bad game" on both sides of the ball against them. Needless to say, that wasn't the case with Boise.

As for the motivation angle, sometimes that's overrated. If you got your ass kicked in front of all your friends by the town bully who is obviously stronger and bigger and meaner than you, would you be looking forward to fighting him again? Especially when this time it's going to be right in the schoolyard and 5 times as many kids are going to be watching? You might be pissed off that you got beat up last time, and you might do your best, but you're not magically going to grow 4 inches and develop 24 inch pythons overnight. I think that's the case with Boise here, especially since their best playmaking receiver Austin Pettis is still a game time decision. He'll probably play, but he's got a bad ankle. Their starting right tackle also got hurt during practice and won't be playing.

Like I said before, Boise has a knack for figuring out ways to hang in games like this, so there is lots of danger in laying a full TD against them, but there is so much going against them in this one that I have to lay with TCU. They were more effective against a much tougher schedule and consistently administered brutal beatings all year long. last thing: Both of these teams have had several bowl teams on their schedule. Boise had 5. Here's how they did in the bowls: two of them played each other (Idaho and BG) so one of them had to win. Here's the rest: Nevada: Destroyed by a 7-5 SMU team out of CUSA. Oregon: Dominated by Ohio St in the Rose Bowl. Fresno: Lost by 7 to possibly the worst bowl team of the past several years(Wyoming, who TCU beat by 35 and outgained by 350 yards). TCU had 6 bowl opponents. here's how they did: Clemson-W over Kentucky. BYU-kicked the shit out of a good Oregon St team. Utah-Handled Cal, another Pac 10 team. AirForce-W. Embarrassed Houston, the 5th ranked offense in the country. SMU-Aforementioned bitchslapper of Nevada, Wyoming-Won against Fresno, as previously mentioned. So that's 1-4 vs 6-0. You can't use the transitive property in football, but it gives us a glimpse into who played the tougher schedule.

I'll have the rest of the bowl season at some point tonight or tomorrow morning...only 3 games left after tonight.