When: Saturday December 18th, 2010
Time: 9pm
Television: espn, espn3.com
Where: Superdome (New Orleans, Louisiana)
The college football bowl season is finally here! On Saturday, the Ohio Bobcats take on the Troy Trojans in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.
For Ohio, its the first time they have gone to back to back bowl games and its their 3rd bowl game in the last 5 years.
For Troy, its their 5th bowl appearance in the last 7 years and their 3rd New Orleans Bowl appearance in the last 5 years.
Ohio hails from the Mid American Conference (MAC) and finished 2nd in the MAC East after losing their season finale vs. Kent State.
Ohio relies on their defense to win games but has a credible offense as well. They run the pistol offense with Boo Jackson at quarterback. They run the ball to set up the pass.
They don't get many yards (94th in total yards) but they score a decent amount of points (28 ppg). Both of their QB's are mobile and like to run the option. Boo Jackson can pass as well as run. He finished the year with 1,688 yards passing and 325 yards rushing for 22 total touchdowns.
Phil Bates is the backup quarterback for the Bobcats who runs the wildcat. He runs almost every time he snaps the ball but does have the ability to pass the ball.
Troy hails from the Sun Belt Conference and won at least a share of the conference title for the 5th straight year.
While Ohio has an adequate offense, Troy has an elite offense. Led by quarterback Corey Robinson, Troy averaged 33 points and 441 yards per game this year.
Despite being a freshmen, Robinson threw for 3,339 yards and 24 touchdowns on the year. Robinson will look for Jerrel Jernigan all night against the Bobcats. Jernigan has had a great career at Troy averaging over 70 receptions a year the last three seasons.
Key Matchups:
-This is going to sound obvious but the key matchup is going to be Ohio's offense vs. Troy's defense and vice versa.
-Ohio has an average offense averaging 28 points per game but Troy has an awful defense. Troy allows 31 points per game and is one of the worst defense's in divison 1 football.
-On the other side, Troy has an amazing offense averaging 33 points per game but Ohio has a good defense finishing 34th in the country in points per game allowed at 21.8 points per game.
Normally, Troy just try's to win by outscoring their opponents. But that could be tough thing to accomplish going up against a good defense in Ohio. For Ohio, they normally play close games and it looks like this game will be more of the same.
The team that exploits the other team's strength will win the game.
Outlook:
-I see a close high scoring game that will go down to the end. Ohio's defense looks to be the difference as they are vastly better than Troy's defense. In the end, I expect Ohio to make a few more big plays than Troy and win.
Prediction: Ohio 35-31
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