MAACO Bowl Las Vegas Wrap Up and Sheraton Hawaii Bowl Prediction

Boise State running back Doug Martin takes the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. Credit: usatoday.net

MAACO Bowl Las Vegas:

This game wasn’t even a contest. Boise State routed the Sun Devils of Arizona State 56-24. The first quarter was all Boise State. I figured the Broncos would have a pretty good special teams play, in fact they returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown.  Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore then completed a 14 yard touchdown pass to Tyler Shoemaker to make it 14-0 Boise State. This continued in the second quarter. Moore completed a touchdown pass to Matt Miller for another touchdown then Arizona State finally got on the board with a 32 yard field goal off the leg of Alex Garoutte.

Boise State then replied with a trick play where wideout Matt Miller threw a touchdown pass to Kyle Efaw. Arizona State never gave up and returned the opening kickoff of the second half back for a touchdown making the score 28-10. It looked like they may have a chance but the rest of this game was all Boise State for the most part. Boise scored 21 points in the fourth to clinch the win. The Broncos actually had one more turnover than the Sun Devils but the Sun Devils had a bunch of stupid penalties for players just not being smart. I am now 4-2 in picks.

Sheraton Hawaii Bowl:

How They Got Here:

Southern Miss:  The Golden Eagles of Southern Miss played a very weak schedule this season. They lost to Marshall in the second week of the season and also lost to UAB late. They beat Houston in the Conference-USA title game to earn some respect and ruin Houston’s BCS bid chances. They finished 11-2.

Nevada: The Wolf Pack lost to Oregon big out in Oregon in their opener and also lost a couple of other tough games against their conference winner Louisiana Tech and lost to a Texas Tech team that crushed Oklahoma and a seventh ranked Boise State Bronco team. They also couldn’t stop the Utah State Aggies and suffered a loss in that game. Nevada did finish with a 7-5 record though despite this.

Prediction:

This Bowl season has been absolutely insane so far but I think that I will take Southern Miss in this game in a close one. Southern Miss has a strongly balanced offense and a very strong offense. They were able to run and throw all over Houston and this team can score quickly or have a very time consuming drive. This team is so explosive and I think Nevada’s fifty-eighth ranked defense is going to have some problems stopping the Golden Eagles.