Yes peoples, Yes! The Smashmauf Blog is still in session. It has been a wild, crazy but fun couple of weeks in the world of sports during this period: The re-emergence of the Carolina Panthers, the Dallas Cowboys rise-fall-rise saga, re-emergence of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tiger Wood's Caddy, Will Smith/Joe Montana/Wayne Gretzy's sons playing on the same football team, Sam Bradford = Heisman, The crazy NY Yankees, the playboy Red Sox, the enigma that is the Toronto Raptors, the dangerous Charlotte Bobcats, The tragedy that is the Auburn football program...and it goes on and on. Yes! Nothing like good old sports to give you some fun, drama and entertainment in December. Still, all that said, it is time to gear up for Bowl season. College Bowls began today.
Here are the teams playing today and the bowl games they are representing:
1. Wake Forest vs. Navy in the Eagle Bank Bowl
2. Colorado State vs. Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl
3. Memphis vs. South Florida in the Magic Jack St. Petersburg Bowl
4. Brigham Young (#16) vs. Arizona in the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl
Eagle Bank Bowl: (Projected Winner - Navy):
Wake Forest went 4-4 in the ACC (nothing to write home about) but made it to the bowl game on the strength of a 7-5 overall record which included a win over a #24 ranked Florida State team in September. Wake Forest definitely is a suspect team and considering that they lost to Navy 24-17 just one week after the Florida State victory automatically makes them over-rated in this game. I pick them to lose today to Navy.
Navy went 8-4 on the season and won the IA independents conference (edging out underperforming Notre Dame). They made it on the virtue of their aforementioned victory over a #16 ranked Wake Forest team in September; Yes, ratings suck sometimes. Navy is not that great of a team but considering that they went into the Bowl season on a high note, sweeping their last 2 games, I can not see them losing to Wake today.
New Mexico Bowl (Pick Colorado State):
Colorado State went 4-4 in the Mountain West with an overall 6-6 record. Very disappointing to have this as a bowl game. This team lost both of its games against ranked opponents & gave up over 45pts each time! The only people who think they can win anything has to be their die-hard fans. They get to live another day.
Fresno State also went 4-4 in the WAC but ended up with a 7-5 record (kudos to the front office). This team barely has a pulse, putting up loses in disappointing fashion against quality teams. They have trouble scoring so it must be a blessing to have Colorado State on the menu today - too bad they seem to be allergic to winning.
Magic Jack St. Petersburg Bowl (Pick Memphis):
Finally a fun game! You have to love this match-up. Memphis ended the season 4-4 with an overall record of 7-5 in the Conference USA division. This is a pretty bad reflection of how good this team could have been this year as they really got off to a terrible start this year by losing 3 straight. However, this team was in every game this year save one. They just could not bring it at crunch time.
South Florida is a team that is quite the opposite of the Memphis ball club as they back peddled into the bowl game today losing 5 of their last 7 games. The team ended up going 2-5 in the might Big East and 7-5 overall. They have a good team but I am just not a believer.
Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl - is this a joke? (Definitely pick Arizona):
Brigham Young, another Mountain West ball club, finished 6-2 with an overall 10-2 record this year. The record is an improvement on those of the teams mentioned above but still it is deceiving. The MWC is a pretty weak conference so finishing 6-2 is nothing to write home about. The 48-24 loss to a #7 ranked Utah team just last month leaves a lot to be desired from this football team.
0 comments:
Post a Comment