The Boca Raton Bowl had the highest over-under in Vegas, and as I’m writing this the game is not disappointing.
It’s hard to believe with the amount of action we’ve already witnessed, we’re not quite a fourth of the way through the bowl season. And it’ll just get better when we get closer to the actual holidays and there are multiple games per day for consecutive days.
Currently, Taylor still leads Bowl Mania after getting out to a quick lead on Saturday.
Let’s take a look at the game to be played on December 21.
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Brigham Young vs. Wyoming (Wednesday, 9 PM ET – ESPN)
At the beginning of the season, it looked like BYU was going to have one of the toughest schedules in the country. But as things began to materialize, that wasn’t really the case. Instead, the Cougars struggled to find an identity on offense despite having Taysom Hill behind center for a sixth season. Hill, unfortunately, suffered another season-ending injury at the end of November and will not play in this game. That will put much of the offensive burden on Jamaal Williams, who has amassed over 1,100 yards this season despite only playing in nine games. Wyoming allows over 200 yards per game on the ground, so it isn’t crazy to think that an extremely run heavy approach can be successful for the Cougars in this one.
However, what will really keep BYU is the ability to keep Wyoming from chewing up the clock with long, effective drives. The Cowboys are very balanced offensively, so they will be able to adapt to BYU’s stingy run defense by trying things through the air a bit more often than usual. Josh Allen leads the Mountain West with 26 touchdown passes this year and will be an important figure in this game. If he’s on, then Wyoming will have a good shot at winning its first bowl game since 2009. But despite an iffy pass defense overall, the Cougars are aggressive on defense and have forced the fourth most interceptions in the country. This will be the difference, as Wyoming has had issues with turnovers all season. I have a lot of points on the Cougars, so I’m banking on at least a couple of them in this one.
My Pick: 24-20 BYU
Bowl Mania Confidence Points: 33
If you’d like to share your opinion on Around The Corn for any of the upcoming bowls, shoot me an email with your thoughts and prediction to kbecks@aroundthecorn.com. You can also like Around The Corn’s Facebook page or send me a tweet @KBecks_ATC. As long as you send your thoughts at least two days before the game is to be played, I can assure you that your thoughts will show up in an article.
