Remember the Rose Bowl game? The Fiesta Bowl? Those New Year’s Day big-boy bowls you grew up watching slightly (or more than slightly) hung over?
Your friendly bowls are back. With benefits.
The College Football Playoff returns this week with four quarterfinal games, two of which we’ll explore in our latest bowl game preview.
After a subpar regular season, we are 5-1 the last two weeks, including 3-0 last week.
Enjoying a Bronco Fiesta
The Fiesta Bowl is the first of the four CFP quarterfinal bowls, flipping the switch on New Year’s Eve with blue-blood Penn State taking on red-letter back Ashton Jeanty and Boise State.
And a trip in the Wayback Machine between these two reveals—nothing. This is the first meeting between the two and it predictably comes with the Nittany Lions as double-digit favorites. With that, we go to their one common opponent—No. 1-ranked Oregon.
Both Boise State (37-34) and Penn State (45-37) lost one-score shootouts to the Ducks. That was the Broncos’ lone loss this season and probably Penn State’s best game of the season, quite a feat for an 11-2 team averaging nearly 34 points and 440 yards a game.
With that, the Nittany Lions impress you more on defense, where they rank in the top 10 nationally in yards (5th at 279 per game), yards per play (7th, 4.6), and rushing yards (9th, 100.3). They impress you with the tag-team backfield of Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, who have combined for 1,820 yards and 16 TDs. And they impress you with a 7-0 record in Fiesta Bowls.
Where they don’t impress you is on the road, where both those losses came from, and where near misses against USC and Minnesota came. This is the spot where we should mention Boise State is well acquainted with Fiesta Bowls, having won three of them between 2007 and 2014. And as impressive as Allen and Singleton are, even combined, they pale when discussing Jeanty (2,497 yards, 29 TDs), who has outgained them by 677 yards and 13 TDs—by himself.
Nobody has stopped Jeanty this year and Penn State won’t either. What the Nittany Lions will likely do is let Jeanty get his, while wearing down the Broncos’ underrated defense just enough to get out of Tempe with a win. But it won’t be a Fiesta for the Nittany Lions.
Best Bet: Boise State +11.5 (-110 at BetMGM)
Here Come Your New Year’s Fireworks
Somehow, the Oregon Ducks, the No. 1-ranked, undefeated Oregon Ducks, are underdogs in a game where they need little motivation—the Rose Bowl game. And Ohio State needs little motivation against an opponent that beat it 32-31 in October.
That established, everyone expects to see the Ohio State team that decided to unbutton its shirts, pants, and everything else and throw offensive caution to the winds in the Buckeyes’ 42-17 opening-round poleaxing of Tennessee. And why not? The Buckeyes average 36 points a game, averaging 9 yards a pass attempt and completing 71.2 percent of their passes. Whatever conservative mindset occupied Ohio State coach Ryan Day and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly in their inexplicable 13-10 loss to Michigan was purged in an offensive frenzy that unleashed itself on the outmanned Volunteers.
As for Oregon, “offensive frenzy” comes with the multi-colored uniforms and fashion-statement helmets (courtesy, Phillip Knight, Nike Inc.). Behind Heisman finalist QB Dillon Gabriel, who threw for 341 yards and two TDs against Ohio State in their first meeting, the Ducks average 35.9 points per game. Gabriel, who finished third in the Heisman voting, is completing 73.2 percent of his passes for 3,558 yards and 28 TDs.
That goes up against the No. 1-ranked defense in the country. Ohio State allows 242 yards and a miserly 4.1 yards per play.
And all of this goes up against the success of both in Pasadena. Oregon has won three straight Rose Bowl Games; Ohio State, four. We’re balancing Gabriel and Oregon coach Dan Lanning, who are both superior to Buckeyes’ QB Will Howard and Day, while understanding that favorites are 14-3 SU and 11-6 ATS in the last 17 Rose Bowl Games. That’s why we’re splitting the difference and rooting for the expected shootout.
Best Bet: Over-55.5 (-110 at BetMGM)
Rebels Won’t Miss This One
Leave it to Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin to find the motivating angle for a second-tier bowl game like Thursday’s Gator Bowl against Duke—the fact the Rebels aren’t playing in a top-tier bowl, i.e. the CFP.
Kiffin has been chirping throughout the postseason about the Rebels’ failure to make the 12-team CFP, especially vis-à-vis teams that did—and were subsequently blown out in the first round. So when you give him the gifts of QB Jaxson Dart, who will bring his 3,875 yards and 25 TDs into the game, along with most of his offense, well… expect points to be made—and scored.
The first point Kiffin will likely make is that one of Duke’s three losses was to an SMU team that was bludgeoned by Penn State in the CPF’s opening round. The second will be when he turns the Rebels’ high-octane offense loose from the opening kickoff to the closing gun. Ole Miss boasts the No. 2 offense in terms of yards (520.3) and yards per play (7.2). It is also the nation’s top offense in yards per pass attempt (10.4), third in QB rating (178.4), and third in passing yards per game (342.5).
This means Dart will have a perpetual green light to pad those stats further—as he burnishes his NFL draft stock.
Meanwhile, the Blue Devils are without QB Maalik Murphy and RB Star Thomas, who both entered the transfer portal. That removes Murphy’s school-record 26 TD passes and Thomas’ team-leading 871 yards from Duke’s equation. Backup Grayson Loftis also departed, leaving offensive matters in the third-string hands of Henry Belin IV.
That leaves Duke’s offense at the not-so-tender mercies of an Ole Miss defense ranked No. 1 in yards per rush (2.3), No. 2 in rushing yards per game (83.5), and No. 5 in yards per play (4.5).
Piling on further, respected VSiN analyst Steve Makinen notes that favorites are on a 23-3 SU and 18-8 ATS run in Gator Bowls. We’ve seen enough here on what could be the biggest blowout of bowl season.
Best Bet: Ole Miss -17 (-110 at BetMGM)
21+. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER