Holiday Bowl info

[Raji]

College football bowl season usually reserves the games with public appeal for New Year’s Eve and afterward. This season’s Holiday Bowl between the Arizona State Sun Devils and Texas Longhorns is a sparkling exception.

Arizona State and Texas are big programs with massive fan bases. They also maintained their places in the national polls nearly all season, finishing Nos. 11 and 17, respectively.

Their Dec. 27 meeting in San Diego is the elite pre-New Year’s bowl game this year. ESPN knows what fell in its lap, sending its A-list team of Brent Musberger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salter to call the game.

I’m left to wonder, then, if the Holiday Bowl’s public appeal will be revealed in the betting line.

Arizona State posted a better record than Texas and won a share of the Pac-10 crown, but the Longhorns have owned the early betting momentum. Texas opened as a 1 to 1 ½-point favorite in early December, with the spread widening to 2 ½ points by the middle of the month.

Three explanations for the betting shift away from the Sun Devils immediately popped into my head:

1. ASU went 0-4 against the spread (ATS) in November and December.

2. Two of those dropped paydays were nationally-televised losses against its biggest Pac-10 challengers.

3. The Sun Devils are disappointed they were passed over for the Fiesta Bowl and are due for a letdown.

All three anti-ASU arguments have some merit. But when I compare this year’s Holiday Bowl combatants, two potential mismatches jump out at me. Texas’ defense comes up short in both of them.

The Sun Devils can’t protect quarterback Rudy Carpenter. ASU allowed 50 quarterback sacks this season, third-most in the entire country, including 15 in its two losses to Oregon and USC.

Texas, however, doesn’t boast the defensive schemes to take advantage of ASU’s biggest weakness. Head coach Mack Brown stresses stopping the run at the expense of a pass rush. The defensive unit’s top individual players are run-stuffing tackles Frank Okam and Derek Lokey.

Of course, sacks aren’t always the result of a poor offensive line. If a secondary can prevent receivers from finding open space, quarterbacks become vulnerable as the linemen protecting them tire. Unfortunately, the secondary is the Longhorns’ other defensive weakness.

Texas’ final four opponents threw for 393 yards per game. It’s a big number that isn’t inflated by teams attempting comebacks by abandoning the ground game. Of the four, only Texas Tech trailed the Horns early and it is a team that relies on the pass anyway. All four foes recognized the Horns’ vulnerability to passing and threw the ball with success.

They hit 70 percent of their pass attempts, connecting on 13 touchdowns through the air while Texas forced only three interceptions. The Longhorns even made Texas A&M look like a deadly passing team in the season finale at College Station.

Carpenter played with an injured hand late in the season, but is feeling more comfortable as the Holiday Bowl approaches. Give him time and he’ll connect all night in San Diego’s pass-friendly weather.

ASU also has a talented group of targets. Sophomore Chris McGaha has become Carpenter’s go-to guy, Michael Jones is a dangerous red-zone threat, and Kyle Williams and Rudy Burgess might be the best receivers of the bunch.

I know better than to base a bet on one potential mismatch that may or may not materialize. Sportsbooks take in a ton of cash during bowl season, so bettors can count on sharp lines everywhere you look.

All the same, I hope money keeps coming in on Texas. As long as Carpenter stays on his feet, I think he has the arm and the targets to regularly hang points on the Horns. An ASU line of +3 or better, then, could be a Christmas gift to unwrap on Dec. 27.

Raji

[Raji]

Pacific Life Holiday Bowl
Teams: Texas Longhorns vs. Arizona State Sun Devils
Date: Thursday, Dec. 27, 8 p.m. ET
Location: Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego
Line: Texas -1 ½, Total 62 ½ points

When Texas Longhorns head coach Mack Brown met with his team a day after it lost to Texas A&M in the season finale, it sounded more like spring drills than the beginning of bowl preparation.

Brown told his team that all jobs are open. All players will be graded each day leading up to the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27 against the Arizona State Sun Devils in San Diego.

The warning comes on the heels of an inconsistent season. The Longhorns had a chance to salvage a BCS bowl game bid with a win over the underdog Aggies. Instead Texas fell 38-30 and the players will now be spending Christmas on the road in hotel rooms.

Though Texas managed to finish 13th in the nation in total offense and 19th in scoring offense, the team failed to live up to the lofty expectations that come as part of the package with playing for the Burnt Orange.

The Horns suffered back-to-back losses in October when they got blown out by 5-6 Kansas State at home and then lost to Oklahoma 28-21. They also barely hung on to win a trio of three-point games against C-USA’s Central Florida, 5-7 Nebraska, and 6-6 Oklahoma State.

So what were the biggest problems?

Turnovers certainly hurt. Texas coughed up 25 balls to the opposition this campaign. Eighteen of those were interceptions thrown by quarterback Colt McCoy. The Horns finished a miserable 79th in the nation in turnover margin.

The defense wasn’t its normal intimidating self for Texas either this year. The Horns allowed five different teams to pile up 32 points. Their passing defense ranked a sickly 109th in the nation with 275 yards against per game.

That could be trouble against a Sun Devils squad that features one of the most accurate passers in the country. Rudy Carpenter carries a 63-percent passing completion mark and has only tossed eight interceptions this season against 23 touchdowns. Carpenter finished third in the Pac-10 in passing yards this season (3,015) and finished second in QB rating (149.5) behind only Oregon’s Dennis Dixon.

Carpenter also suffered a beating that few quarterbacks had to endure after getting sacked a painful 51 times throughout the year. That ranks third-worst in college football behind 2-10 Syracuse and 3-9 Notre Dame.

Over at ASU, the defense actually stole the show this season, symbolizing the changes brought in by head coach Dennis Erickson. The Sun Devils ranked 21st overall and 13th at stopping the run, allowing just 100.2 rushing yards per game.

Those numbers helped ASU become one of the most profitable under bets this season with a 3-9 over/under record. Texas, meanwhile, was a profitable over play with an 8-4 over/under record. Both teams finished 6-6 against the spread.

The key to winning Dec. 27 for Arizona State will be slowing running back Jamaal Charles, the Big 12’s leading rusher. He finished the year with nearly 1,500 yards and comes into the Holiday Bowl with 736 yards in his last four games.

For the Longhorns, they’ll need to find a way to hang on to the ball and, when on defense, throw Carpenter out of sync.

This game marks the first meeting between these schools.

Raji