Football on the Fringe

A quiet week on the fringe, especially since a lot of the non-BCS bowls have given way to the bigger leagues this week.  We have had a few more surprises this week, which sets up a very interesting run through the rest of Bowl Season

Marshall 21, Ohio 17- this, to me, is a big surprise and is not the outcome that the MAC (or Ohio, of course) wanted- 6-6 Marshall came in and jumped out early, and while the offense faded in the second half, Ohio couldn’t muster quite enough points to catch the Herd.  Still a good year for Ohio, but they’ll be looking to finish better in 2010.

We have no non-BCS bowl games today, but a couple good ones to look forward to this week:

Eaglebank- UCLA vs. Temple- These two teams have never met.  In fact, Temple has only been to two other bowl games- one in 1939 and their last trip was in 1979, where they also played a team from out west- California.  Meanwhile, UCLA is back in the postseason after a year away, but has lost their last two bowl games and hasn’t picked up a postseason win since 2005. 

24 may be the magic number in this game- all of UCLA’s 6 losses came when they allowed 24 or more points, while they held beaten teams to 23 or less.  UCLA’s offense only scored more than 23 three times this year, against San Diego State, Washington State, and in a loss to Cal (who scored 45).  On the other side, Temple only went under 23 twice all season, both in losses.  Temple’s defense is good but not great, so a 30-20 type game is their best recipe for success on Tuesday.

Humanitarian Bowl, Bowling Green vs. Idaho- Wednesday’s game will be the first meeting between these two teams as well.  This is Idaho’s second bowl appearance all time and second in the Humanitarian, which they won in 1998.  BGSU is 4-3 all time in bowl games, having most recently lost to Tulsa in the 2007 GMAC Bowl.  This will be their 4th bowl game of the 2000s.

This one should come down to Idaho finding a way to improve it’s shaky pass defense, but this bowl season has gone nothing like we expected so far, so who knows.  Bowling Green brings in the #8 passing offense while Idaho is #11 in the same category, so if the weather is good, this one should be a shootout.  The difference is found in the passing defense- Idaho’s is in the bottom 10 nationally, while Bowling Green is a top 50 team.  A glance at the weather shows about 29 degrees at kickoff with a chance of snow, so we’ll see how the cold temps affect the offenses in this one- dealing with conditions could be the deciding factor in this game.

Thursday too will feature a couple more non-BCS games, but we’ll try to cover those later this week.  In the meantime, enjoy the football and hopefully a quiet week between holidays.

Last night, BYU continued the process of boosting the MWC’s status by kicking Oregon State all over the Las Vegas Bowl.  In the face of howling winds, BYU led most of the way to a 44-20 victory.

Tonight, Utah will look to keep that going as they take on Cal in the Poinsettia Bowl.  This is Utah’s 8th bowl in the 2000s, and a return to the Poinsettia where they beat Navy in 2007.  Utah is riding an 8 bowl game win streak, and hasn’t lost in the postseason since 1996.

Meanwhile, this will be Cal’s 7th straight bowl appearance after going 7 seasons without a game, and their first trip to the Poinsettia Bowl.  They’re also on a 4 game bowl win streak after beating Miami in the Emerald Bowl last year.

Utah & Cal have played six times, with Utah winning only two of those.  The Utes did claim their last meeting in 2003, 31-24.

And now, your links!

Looks at the Las Vegas Bowl from Salt Lake City and Corvalis

A solid Poinsettia preview from Graham Watson at ESPN, and one from the New York Times for good measure.

Bobby Hauck is leaving 1-AA finalist Montana for UNLV, which may not be a great idea, says Doc Sat.

I haven’t really done the link-sharing post thus far in the short history of this site, mainly because I hadn’t come up with a way to sift through 54 teams worth of web writing.  But for now, I’ll be giving it a try here during bowl season since the games are pretty concentrated.

Tonight, we have the Las Vegas Bowl, featuring BYU and Oregon State.  This is BYU’s 5th straight LV Bowl, with a 2-2 record in the previous four.  They lost to Arizona 31-21 last year.  This is their 6th bowl of the decade, and their overall bowl record is 9-17-1.

Oregon State is in the bowl for the first time since 2003, but this is their 8th bowl of the 2000s, and they have won 5 bowls in a row, beating Pitt last year in a 3-0 Sun Bowl outing.  Oregon State is 8-4 all time in bowl play.

BYU is 3-5 all time vs. Oregon State, but the two have not played since 1986.

Two nights ago, Middle Tennessee beat Southern Miss to claim the New Orleans Bowl.  While USM fans are looking for good bridges, the reality is that MTSU is a really good team, and has just finished up the best season in their history at 10-3.  The Sun Belt is making big strides toward claiming its place with the rest of the non-BCS conferences as a place where legitimately good college football can be found on a regular basis.

Now, a few links:

The Salt Lake Tribune looks at BYU’s impressive Senior class.

Folks in Corvalis think that Utah is not holding up their end of the Gubernatorial Wager.

BYU and Oregon State blogs preview the festivities.

Other bowl stuff:

UCF will make a small profit off the St. Pete Bowl trip.

A hometown look at Wyoming’s surprising win in the New Mexico Bowl (slightly sappy).

As noted, folks in Hattiesburg- even their journalists- refuse to accept MTSU as a program worthy of beating their own and the meltdown is on.

MTSU’s nearby newspaper comes in with notes and tidbits on the Blue Raiders’ historic night.

The St. Petersburg bowl was, from everybody’s perspective but UCF’s, a great success.  A sellout crowd of over 29,000 gave the game the atmosphere you might expect from a more prestigious bowl, and the game was fairly interesting for a couple reasons as it evolved.  The first half was fairly competitive until it wound down, with UCF keeping pace with Rutgers and even taking some of the momentum as they closed the score to 21-17.  Unfortunately, a pick-six handed Rutgers what would wind up being the winning touchdown.

The second half was simply a coming out party for freshman QB and RB Tom Savage and Mohamed Sanu.  If these guys are as good as UCF made them look, Rutgers is loaded to be a Big East powerhouse in the very near future.

Rutgers won the game by blowing up UCF’s strengths- defense and a power running game.  Through the third quarter, UCF had 20 rushes for 2 yards.  Things improved slightly in garbage time, but Rutgers was on cruise control by then.

The game in a nutshell was defined when UCF scored to close the gap to 14 with just under 3 minutes to play- the onside kick attempt took a funny hop, right into the arms of a Rutgers returner who had 40 yards of open turf in front of him, which ran the score out to the final of 45-24.

Overall, the St. Pete bowl was impeccably well organized- the city provided a shuttle that ran fast and often to move around town, traffic exiting the area seemed to be fine, although I did lag behind the masses a bit, and the stadium staff really welcomed the football crowd- maybe just happy to get a day’s work in during December, but every last one of them was pleasant and helpful.

As for the implications, it’s hard to say exactly- UCF might have just been extra flat.  But if the game is an indication of how the conferences stack up, the Big East could be beastly this winter, while Conference USA teams might be in some trouble- UCF was the #2 team in the league this year.

Elsewhere, Wyoming obliterated confidence pools around the country with their double OT win over Fresno State, and showed remarkable grit to pull it off- they stopped Fresno State on four consecutive goal-line attempts in the first OT period, only needing a FG to win it there.  Their kicker missed, but the team responded immediately with a quick touchdown in the 2nd go-round.  The defense held again, and Wyoming is now on a two-bowl winning streak.

Tonight, Southern Mississippi squares off against Middle Tennessee State in the New Orleans bowl on ESPN.  As is often the case with these games, this game could come down to preparation and motivation, in which case it seems like MTSU could have an edge- looking for a record 10th win while Southern Miss is playing in the bowl for the 4th time in 6 seasons, and can’t be thrilled with a 7-5 season mark.

If all goes according to plan, then I’ll be live the St. Petersburg Bowl tonight when UCF squares off against Rutgers, and if it really goes according to plan, then I’ll be here live-blogging the event. Meanwhile, the NFL has some game going on too, so we’re joining up with the Phoenix Pub crew for a big ol’ liveblog. We’ll see if it works!

After all this time, we’ve made it through to the college football postseason, and we’ve got 3 weeks of interesting matchups in bowl games big and small. They start today with two that ought to be pretty good. I’ve previewed them already, but here’s a couple more bits of tid:

Wyoming: 5-6 All time bowl record.  One other bowl appearance this decade, beating UCLA in the 2004 Las Vegas Bowl.

Fresno State: 10-8 All time bowl record, 9th bowl appearance this decade, only missing out in 2006.  Played in the New Mexico Bowl last year also, losing to Colorado State 40-35.

Wyoming vs. Fresno State: 3-3, but have not played since 1997.  Home team won each matchup in the six year series.

UCF: 0-2 All time bowl record.  Third bowl appearance this decade, last appearing in the 2007 Liberty Bowl (played before New Year’s that year- there technically was no 2008 LB as it moved to January), lost to Mississippi State 10-7.

Rutgers: 3-2 All time bowl record.  5th consecutive bowl appearance and 5th of the 2000s.  Beat NC State in the Papajohns.com bowl last year 29-23.

UCF and Rutgers have never played.  Rutgers has not played a C-USA team since the 2005 realignment.  UCF has never beaten a Big East team, 0-5 since 2005 and 0-13 all time.

Tonight, we’re hoping to have a big Phoenix Pub/Football on the Fringe Live Blog from Tropicana Field – we’ll see if it works.   The New Mexico Bowl kicks off at 4:30, and the St. Pete Bowl at 8, both on ESPN.  Have a great first day of Bowl Season, and if you aren’t signed up for the bowl pick’em game, now is the time! http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/bowl, group ID 36923, password: phoenix

Yup, I’ve posted my first batch of bowl previews over at The Phoenix Pub.  I had thought about generating more in-depth ones to post here, but between the matchup mentions going on in the season reviews and the Pub posts, they’re about covered.  Feel free to add other thoughts or insight into the first bowls of 2009.
More Season Reviews coming soon!

The season did not start out looking good for the MAC- in week 1, the league went 3-10 out of conference, including Temple’s loss to 1-AA Villanova and several beatings at the hands of mid-level BCS conference schools.  But things turned around for the league- Central Michigan beat Michigan State and Toledo beat Colorado in week 2, and the league race turned out to be very compelling down the stretch.

It wasn’t all glory, of course, the league’s bottom four teams had abysmal years, several of them with a chance to go winless, and ultimately one of them did.  Last year’s league finalist fell hard too, and new coaches found the going tough this season.

So here are, once again, the reversed power rankings with a look at the 2009 season.

Read Post

Just a quick note to mention that the rest of the week will remain pretty quiet out here.  Enjoy your week away, or check out Army-Navy on Saturday if you need a fix to get you through to Bowl Season.  Personal matters are pulling me away from the desk through the end of the week or so, but my Pub column should run at its normal time tomorrow and I’ll be back next week to recap the regular season conference by conference, and then we’ll start previewing bowl games on Friday or Saturday.  As always, the twitter and RSS feeds will let you know when stuff starts popping up.  Enjoy the rest of your week, and thanks for stopping in.