Dec 30th Bowl Picks

5 Star Play

North Carolina Pk vs Tennessee

Top Picks

K State/Syracuse under 47.5

North Carolina- This is a real nice opportunity to take advantage of an experienced bowl coach in Butch Davis against a virtual first timer in Derek Dooley. I think both teams are pretty even talent wise but Carolina has the edge at QB. When you are looking at bowls, coaching is the first key and QB does fall too far behind.

Neither team had a particularly impressive season however I think the intangibles are quite different for both teams. NC had the well documented problems and was able to keep things together. I believe that this bowl will be important to them as a validation of their efforts on preventing an implosion. Tennessee on the other hand really slumped in the SEC and has a long way to go to back to the top. This game means extra practice and some good publicity but they have no compelling reason to really want to win this game.

Put all those things together and NC will end up winning this game. Probably not a blowout but a solid double digit win.

K State/Syracuse- Outside of the fact that this game is played in NYC probably not too much to see here. I personally like defensive battles so I will enjoy the chess match for both teams defenses. I don't see much scoring happening unless the offenses are so bad that they allow defensive scores. I will go with the probability that both defenses play very well and the offenses grind it out and play a field position game with a few scores now and then.