College Football: Alamo Bowl

[Tinfish]

Bowl Record (7-5)

Line: Oklahoma St. –3 VS Ohio St.

When this game first opened I was a little undecided which side I was going to play. Okie St. tailed off at the end of the year while the Buckeyes ended the year with a big win over Michigan, and won 4 of 5. But the problem is QB Troy Smith led the Buckeyes to those wins not Justin Zwick. Smith brought a much needed burst to the Buckeye offense as he rushed for 325 yards in his 5 starts. Don’t expect Zwick to be anywhere close to that. Zwick who hasn’t played in awhile was only connecting on 50% of his passes and had 5 TDs to 6 INTs. Zwick has not looked comfortable in the pocket this year, and that doesn’t bode to well when your playing against an Okie St. team that led the nation in turnover margin (+18).

When Zwick played the Buckeyes went 3-3. Getting blown out by 26 to Iowa, losing to Northwestern, and Whisky. He led the Buckeyes to a 3 point win over Marshall, a close win over NC State, and a solid win over Cincy.

There is a reason though that the Buckeyes averaged 20 points in the 6 games Zwick started, and 28 points in the games Smith started. And Smith played against the better defenses and teams.

Ted Ginn is explosive and a force in the return game. Good coaching by Les Miles should negate that. Miles has already told the media he will probably just kick the ball out of bounds. Why teams don’t do this all the time when playing against teams with these caliber return men always bothered me.

Shouldn’t be a problem though as Okie St. has one of the best special teams units in the country. Their punter avgs 44 yards per punt and hits 70% of his kickoffs out the end zone.

While Okie St. did lose 3 of their last 5 games, it happened to be against OU, TX, and TX Tech. And you can arguably say that they could’ve easily beaten both Texas and OU this year.

They are led by Vernand Morency one of the top RBs in the country and a solid ground attack that ranks 8th in the country. Morency avgs 5.8 YPC and has 1,454 yards on the season. And yes go ahead and make the one-dimensional comments about “All the Buckeyes will do is stack the line and force Okie to beat them with the pass.” Sometimes when people make those comments I wonder if they’ve ever even played football. Don’t you think that’s what EVERY single team that plays Okie St. trys to do that. UCLA knew what was coming every play and they got blown out the building. OU and TX two teams with STOUT defenses did the same thing as well and Okie still put up more then 30 points against each.

Donovan Woods has done well in leading the offense. When called upon he has thrown for 13 TDs, run for another 10 and only thrown 4 INTs. I think he will do just enough to get Okie the win today.

The fact that this game is being played in San Antonio which is going to be a huge advantage to Okie St, and more importantly that only 9 days ago it was announced that Zwick will start and not Smith makes me think Okie St. wins this game. It will take Zwick time to learn a now changing offense, and to get continuity with his Wrs.

My Play: Okie St. -3

[StateWrestler]

I def. agree 100% with this pick. Oklahoma State has scored on 42 of 45 trips into the red zone, including 34 touchdowns. Oklahoma State has one of the best running backs in the nation in Vernand Morency, who has 1,454 yards and 12 TDs.

I'll drop a couple $$ on this one.