December 29th Bowl Game Predictions

It's the best time of the year! It's bowl week with some of the most intriguing matchups of the college football season. The interesting December bowl games include Oregon State and Texas in the Valero Alamo Bowl, TCU and Michigan State in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, and LSU-Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. As we make our way into the New Year, we have a few interesting matchups on New Year's Day. The Outback Bowl between Michigan and South Carolina could be interesting with strong defensive play and the Rose Bowl will be fun with Stanford and Wisconsin, who are mirror images of one another because of their strong running game and physical defenses. We continue with the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl between Oregon and Kansas State, who both had their chance of making the BCS National Championship. The season finishes up with Texas A&M, led by Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel, against old Big 12 opponent Oklahoma in the AT&T Cotton Bowl. The season then finishes up with the BCS National Championship game between the historic programs of Notre Dame and Alabama.

I will be attending the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl in Tempe and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl in Glendale. The Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl pits two teams that rely heavily on their defense. Both TCU and Michigan State underachieved this season and lost close games that could have turned their season's around. We will see which offense decides to show up and put more points on the board. The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl is probably the second best bowl game this season. Both Oregon and Kansas State had a chance to punch their ticket to Miami for the BCS National Championship, but were tripped up in the third to last week of the season and found themselves playing each other in the desert instead.

          

1. Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (Tempe, AZ)  10:15 PM ET ESPN

TCU vs Michigan State

2. Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, AZ)  8:30 PM ET ESPN

#4 Oregon vs #5 Kansas State

1. Valero Alamo Bowl (San Antonio,TX)  6:45 PM ET ESPN

 #23 Texas vs #13 Oregon State 

- This will surprisingly be a very good game between two teams that are very even. The Texas Longhorns and Oregon State Beavers were in position to win their conferences, but lost key games at the end of the season. Texas will start quarterback David Ash again after he was benched against TCU and Kansas State at the end of the season. There is going to be a lot of pressure on the Longhorn rushing attack as the Beaver defense continues to be tough against the run. The Longhorn offense needs to run outside like they did against Kansas State to pick up yardage, otherwise the Beaver defensive line will stuff them if they try to go up the middle. Another aspect to this game is going to be the Longhorn secondary trying to defend the Beaver receiving core consisting of Markus Wheaton and Brandin Cooks. The Longhorn defense consisting of defensive end Alex Okafor will need to get pressure on Beaver quarterback Cody Vaz to take the Beaver passing game away. This is going to be a tough game, but I feel with the Longhorns being a Texas team and almost having a home field advantage they will find a way to win this game. Texas Head Coach Mac Brown cannot afford to lose this game either.

Prediction: Texas 34, Oregon State 24

              2. Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (Tempe, AZ)  10:15 PM ET ESPN

TCU vs Michigan State

- This is a game of underachieving teams. Both the TCU Horned Frogs and Michigan State Spartans were projected to be contenders to win their conferences, but lost key games and found themselves in the middle of the pack. TCU had their fair share of problems this season with Casey Pachall leaving the team with alcohol related problems and having to rely on 16 true freshman to play after other starters went down with injuries. It is going to be interesting to see if the Horned Frogs offense led by quarterback Trevone Boykin can score points on the third best overall defense in the country. The Spartan defense is giving up just 16.3 points per game and 99.6 rushing yards per game. What Michigan State has to do in this game is keep TCU's offense off the field and continue to run with one of the most physical running backs in the country in Le'Veon Bell. It just depends if the Spartans can put enough points up to beat a team that has played in a stronger conference this season. The Spartans have lost five games by four points or less this season and have only averaged 20.2 points per game. We'll see if the Spartans have what it takes to improve offensively tonight. This is going to be a very defensive ball game and it is going to be up to the offenses to put up enough points to win this ball game.

Prediction: TCU 27, Michigan State 23