Simulated Gameday Experience

The Holiday Bowl has had a lot of interesting matchups and shocking upsets during the BCS years. When neither conference gets a BCS invite, it matches up the #2 team in the Pac 10 against the #3 team in the Big 12. Often times this has been a team on the cusp of playing in a BCS game, perhaps a loss away from the championship game, and we’ve seen some teams like 03 Texas, 04 Cal, and 05 Oregon come into this game perhaps focused on that a little too much, only to leave San Diego with their tail between their legs. Since 1998, only twice has either conference claimed this game in back-to-back years, and just three games have been settled by 14 or more points. Many times this has ended up being arguably the best December bowl game of the season, perhaps most notably Major Applewhite’s classic comeback performance in 2001.

Arizona

Though the Wildcats finished behind both Stanford and Oregon State in the polls, some inane technicality of a tiebreaker called “head to head games” (the Big 12 conference gives a puzzled look at that one) gave Arizona the conference’s slot in this one.

If you look over Arizona’s offensive stats, you’ll find a team that ranks somewhere between 39 and 45 in the NCAA pretty much everywhere. They’re a little above average at everything, not particularly strong in any overarching area. For this program’s standards, they’ll absolutely take that. Before Sonny Dykes came to AU from Texas Tech in 2007, the Wildcats’ offense had averaged just 16 ppg to sabotage a pretty good defensive unit in 2006, leading to a 6-6 record with no bowl berth. Two years later the team won their bowl game over BYU to finish 8-5, as despite some slip on defense the offense bailed the team out to the tune of 36.6 ppg.

This year’s team lost some experience on that side of the ball, but Nick Foles has stepped up to deliver a solid performance at QB, with a 66% completion percentage and a 132 rating. Keola Antolin gradually replaced Nic Grigsby at RB around midseason, and Greg Nwoko has re-emerged as a short yardage back in recent weeks. Despite the Airraid connection, AU runs the ball about 34 times per game while passing 38, a very balanced attack that also incorporates a sophisticated screen game. The Wildcats don’t seem to have a standout receiver and five players average between 3.1 and 3.9 receptions per game, exactly what we’d expect from an offensive coordinator of Dykes’ pedigree.

Defensively, we’re also not looking at any kind of top unit here, but the Wildcats are 45th in scoring defense and 22nd in total D. They’re perhaps a little better against the run than the pass, and we’re not expecting the latter to hurt them in this particular matchup.

Not a single Wildcat was named to the Pac 10’s first team all-conference, although seven received second-team honors. Indeed, there isn’t a superstar in this bunch, really. But when you’ve got an offense derived from Mike Leach’s system and a defense under Mike Stoops, the schemes and execution are usually solid.

Nebraska

Nebraska is a team many watched take the Pasadena-bound Texas Longhorns to the limit, coming within a second of clinching perhaps the biggest upset yet in a Big 12 championship game. Indeed the Huskers are no strangers to disappointment this season, losing a road game to Virginia Tech in the closing seconds after controlling most of the game, and losing by two points to Iowa State in an eight-turnover debacle. The Huskers shouldn’t get the Holiday Bowl hangover, though… with three losses going into the conference championship, nobody would mistake this team for a top 10 squad nationally even if they had pulled off the upset. Although 9-4 is the same record they finished with a year ago, this team is vastly improved because of their defense, and they should be eager to try to hit 10 wins for the first time since 2003.

Offensively, this is a team in the bottom third of college football. They’re 80th in scoring offense and 101st in total offense… the closest thing to any good news is that they’re 68th in rushing offense with 141 ypg. That’s the work of Roy Helu, the only Husker to be named to the all-coference team (second team) on offense, and Nebraska’s best hope of moving the ball this week. Junior WR Niles Paul is the only Husker averaging over 2 catches per game, and the thing that surprised me the most about Zac Lee’s 13-10 TD-Int ratio as a QB is that he actually threw more TDs than INTs. His three picks are basically the reason they didn’t win the conference championship, and I wouldn’t be surprised to watch him blow a winnable situation against Arizona.

On the other side of the ball is a whole other story. Four Huskers were named to the all-conference first team defense, including AP Player of the Year Ndamukong Suh. With 82 tackles, 12 sacks, 10 pass breakups, 19 hurries, 3 blocked kicks, and an interception, Suh’s stats aren’t that far off from the entire defensive lines at Alabama, Florida, and Texas. So it’s no wonder that the defense ranks 2nd nationally in scoring, 9th in total yards, 10th against the run, and 3rd in pass efficiency. Keep in mind that this is despite the offense typically giving the ball right back to the other team after the defense forces a stop. So if I just said that Lee could easily blow this game on offense, it’s perhaps equally likely that Suh figures out a way to outscore Arizona by himself 9-6 (safety, touchdown, and blocking a late potential tying FG).

Nebraska also fields the Big 12’s all-conference second-team kicker, Alex Henery. Henery has connected on 83% of his FG and 100% of his PAT on the season and hit long kicks from 52, 45, and 43 yards in the conference championship game. In the low-scoring, sloppy game I’d expect in this one, Henery’s leg could be the difference.

What to Expect

Expect ugly. Although Texas Tech was the one team to have offensive success against Nebraska this year, Arizona doesn’t field that caliber of passing attack and Dykes has gone away from the pure Airraid attack. At the same time, NU’s offense has struggled in most of their conference games and the Wildcats should be able to keep this woeful unit bottled up. Three things I look for in this one are a game-changing play by Suh, late-game productivity by Helu, and Huskers’ points in the first three quarters coming from getting Henery in range until one of the former happens.

Pick: Nebraska

Tags: Bowl previews