Fiesta Bowl Mark's Free Pick College Football Boise State-Texas Christian: 1/4/09

Written by Mark | 02 January 2010

Fiesta Bowl-College Football 1/2/10

Boise State Broncos (13-0) (WAC)-Texas Christian Horned Frogs (12-0) (MWC)

By Mark • Monday January 4th, 2009 8:10 PM EST
Line-Texas Christian -7.5

It’s another year of scoring and winning for Boise State and also a rematch with TCU. The Broncos had conducted their usual march through the WAC and although they faced few challenges, it seems the conference was a tad tougher or Boise was a bit closer to the pack. Not that it was all that close because it wasn’t. Kellen Moore was even better than last season with over3,300 yards on 65% with an eye popping 39/3 TD/INT ratio. When the Broncos weren’t throwing Jeremy Avery was leading a rushing game that was just shy of 200 yards per. All this adds up to an offense that shredded opponents for 461 yards and the nations best 44 points per game. The Broncos were 14th in total defense allowing just 300 yards and less than 18 points and were difficult to pass on although teams had some success on the ground. With all due respect to Oregon, Texas Christian could well be the best team the Broncos have faced.

The Horned Frogs have more than their share of weapons and having watched this team throughout the year I believe this is a National Championship caliber team that can play with anybody. They possess the #4 offense that has an adequate passing attack behind Andy Dalton, but is an absolute juggernaut on the ground averaging 257 yards. You don’t need much of a passing game with that production. Their 44 points matches their counterparts as this team was held below 30 points twice. As good as their offense has been, the TCU defense hardly needed a lot of points to get the W. The top ranked defense in football brutalized opposing offense’s allowing just 233 yards and a miniscule 12 points. It’s front page news when opponents score more than 20 points which has happened a grand total of one time in 2009.

Boise State is 4-1 against the spread in their past 5 Bowl games as an underdog and 4-0 against the number in their last 4 as an underdog of 3.5-10 points. TCU is 4-1 against the spread in their past 5 Bowl games and 6-1 against the number in the past 7 as a favorite.

This is probably one of the better match ups of the Bowl season and I would love to see these guys play some of the other top names but who can really argue about these two going at it. I would say the Horned Frogs have more potential to win comfortably but the Broncos are no push over on either side of the ball.

I really can’t pick a clear cut winner so that means the points look good to me…