Film history is littered with bad sequels to fantastic movies – Godfather, Caddyshack and The Matrix come to mind as examples of producers who didn’t know when to stop.
You have no doubt seen this analogy heading in to the 2012 BCS Title Game between the LSU Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide but it has two flaws – 1) the original game was not entertaining nor played at a high level, and 2) there is always the chance we will get a “Wrath of Khan” or a “Dark Knight” followup.
Defense. Honey Badger. Trent Richardson. The verbal stylings of Les Miles. Here is the SportsCentral Preview:
GoDaddy.com Bowl, Arkansas State (10-2) vs. Northern Illinois (10-3), Mobile, Alabama Ladd Peebles Stadium- Kickoff 2100 ET (9pm)
Arkansas State
Sun Belt offensive player of the year Ryan Aplin is a dual threat QB passing for 3,235 yards with 18 touchdowns and running for a team-high 605 with nine scores for the Red Wolves. ASU has averaged over 38-points per game over the past six contests.
Aplin’s favorite target is senior Dwayne Frampton, who set a school record with 1,125 receiving yards on 90 catches.
Sun Belt defensive player of the year Brandon Joiner ranks among the national leaders with 12 sacks. The senior defensive end paces a unit that gives up 19.3 points per game.
The Red Wolves hope to continue their success without coach Hugh Freeze who left to take the head coaching job at Mississippi. While former Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn was named Arkansas State’s next coach last month current assistant coach David Gunn will guide the team in Mobile.
Northern Illinois
NIU features versatile QB Chandler Harnish, the MAC offensive player of the year who owns 20 school records. Harnish completed 63% of his passes for a career-high 2,942 yards while rushing for 1,382 and having his hand in 37 touchdowns – 11 rushing and 26 passing.
The Huskies rank 10th nationally with 481.8 yards per game and ninth with an average of 247.6 rushing yards.
Three Huskies receivers have caught at least 39 passes, led by senior Nathan Palmer, who set career highs with 46 receptions, 683 yards and seven TDs.
The Huskie defense has had its share of problems ranking in the bottom third of the nation allowing 31.1 points per game. However, they did not give up a second-half point in rallying from 20 down to beat Ohio 23-20 in the MAC championship game
NIU has a 4-7 bowl record while ASU is 0-1; these teams have met seven times with NIU holding a 6-1 edge winning most recently in 1996 31-30.
Comment: This will be a fun game to watch after the low-scoring NFL Playoffs. Considering their recent ASU coach change give the edge to NIU and pushing the MAC to an unprecedented 4-1 bowl record this year.
Remember that all the college football bowl games are de facto exhibition games – that should not dampen your enthusiasm, in fact it is not every year that you get a matchup like the 2012 Fiesta Bowl.
Elite WR Justin Blackmon leads the high-scoring Oklahoma State attack (Icon SMI)
Glendale AZ hosts the Oklahoma State Cowboys and the Stanford Cardinal on Monday January 2 at 8pm ET, and in any other year this would be a fantastic BCSMNC (BCS Mythical National Championship).
Heck, one could well argue that the Cowboys deserved to be in the title game but that nasty loss at Iowa State “left it to the judges”.
Nonetheless, a great consolation prize and a true 3-4 matchup for bragging rights. Two respected coaches leading their alma mater to heights previously not known for the programs. Two of the best quarterbacks in the sport. And fans can enjoy the football for football sake.
Meineke Car Care Bowl, 1200 on Saturday December 31, Reliant Stadium
It’s noon on the last day of 2011! What are you doing? Watching a pair of 6-6 teams square off in preparation for a 3:30 game involving a pair of 6-7 teams. Woo!
Texas A&M’s final game in the Big 12 will be recorded as a loss to Colt McCoy’s younger brother on a slow-weaving QB scramble from midfield into field goal range in the game’s closing seconds. In the process of reaching bowl eligibility, the Aggies blew double digit halftime leads against Oklahoma State, Arkansas, and Missouri and blew a 10 point lead against Kansas State with just over 6 minutes left in the game. It’s been a kind of dream season for the Aggies, from Austin’s perspective.
Northwestern, the closest team geographically to Madison in the Big Ten Where’s Wisconsin division, somehow lost consecutive games to Army and Illinois, but don’t worry folks – Jim Delany made damn sure that 10 of the 12 Big Ten teams would be playing somewhere this Bowl Season. Yay!
The Wildcats run a pretty high-powered offense, with QB Dan Persa completing an impressive 74% of his passes in a system that calls plays quickly and focuses on short, high percentage throws. Receiver Kain Colter is an x-factor QB/WR here, averaging 49 ypg rushing and 38 ypg receiving. Jeremy Ebert has been the main target through the air though, at 71 total receptions for 93 ypg.
Texas A&M has also been explosive offensively. QB Ryan Tannehill is averaging just shy of 300 ypg, and two RBs are gaining over 95 ypg. Unfortunately, of those two backs, Christine Michael has been lost for the season and Cyrus Gray is questionable. So the offense will probably be a bit less balanced than usual, and you can expect Ryan Swope and Jeff Fuller to see a lot of balls thrown their way.
Overall, we’ve got two pretty good quarterbacks going up against two mediocre-to-bad defenses. My gut trusts the Aggie defense a little more than their NU counterparts, so I’ll go with A&M to win a high-scoring game.
Iowa may not have Mr America QB Ricky Stanzi anymore, but do have the nation’s first presidential caucuses in a few weeks and they were the subject of some pretty awesome “Rick PArry” ads run by the Colbert Super-PAC. They also have a legitimately impressive RB (Marcus Coker, 115 ypg) and receiver (Marvin McNutt, 106 ypg) so there is some balanced firepower on this squad. Sure, they may have gotten slightly out-gained in the season aggregates, and sure, they
finished in the bottom half of the Big 10′s Where’s Wisconsin division. But, other than Minnesota and Iowa State, this team didn’t have any bad
losses, and they made up for those with some impressive wins like, umm…
On to Oklahoma!
It’s weird for a Texas fan to say this, but OU caught some really bad breaks this season and if life was fair they’d be in a better bowl. Not based on their 9-3 record, but I mean if they hadn’t lost one of the best two WR in the country (Ryan Broyles) and their starting HB Dominique Whaley, they might have finished with another win or two and a top 10 ranking. Nevertheless, this is a very good team. Landry Jones throws for 358 ypg, even with Broyles out for 3 games, and Kenny Stills and Jaz Reynolds have both been very effective receivers. In three losses, the defense has given up 40+ points, but that’s only indicative of a really
poor effort against Texas Tech. Against Baylor and Oklahoma State, you kinda expect that unless the defense is really elite.
The bottom line is that Iowa is too outmatched at QB, WR depth, and probably on the lines to make this a competitive game.
