Today’s Bowl games

Military Bowl

Maryland Terrapins (7-5) vs. Marshall Thundering Herd (9-4)

Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Annapolis, Maryland (34,000)

2:30 PM ET/1:30 CT

ESPN

Mike Patrick, Ed Cunningham, Jeannine Edwards

Refs:Mountain West- Dan Romeo

Surface: Artificial

Weather: 42, Sunny @ kickoff, 0% rain, Wind S @ 9 MPH

Line: Marshall by 2.5

I’m going with the better conference in this one. I liked Bowling Green last night and they played Pitt from the ACC. Pitt just had more physicality and had been through tougher wars than Bowling Green. I say the same thing happens here. Randy Edsall is a good football coach at Maryland, C.J. Brown ran for 12 TDs and threw for 11. Marshall’s Rakeem Cato threw 36 TD passes. Maryland has been hit hard by injuries the last couple of years. They’ve had an up and down year, but they beat Virginia Tech, 27-24, Nov. 16th, and then beat North Carolina State on Nov. 30th, 41-21. I like Edsall, Brown and the Terps to get it done. Don’t think the Thundering Herd has enough defense.

Maryland 35, Marshall 31

Texas Bowl

Syracuse Orange (6-6) vs. Minnesota Golden Gophers (8-4)

Reliant Stadium, Houston (71,500)

6 PM ET/5 CT

ESPN

Mark Jones, Brock Huard, Kaylee Hartung

Refs: SEC, Matt Moore

Surface: Artificial

Weather: 56, cloudy at kickoff, 10% rain, wind NE @ 5 MPH

Line: Minnesota by 4

I don’t think this will be a high octane offensive game. Minnesota has a good running game and had quality Big Ten wins over Penn State and Nebraska. I like the Big Ten over the ACC in this one.

Golden Gophers 28, Orange 23

Fight Hunger Bowl

Brigham Young (8-4) vs. Washington Huskies (8-4)

AT&T Park, San Francisco (37,000)

9:30 PM ET/8:30 CT

ESPN

Dave Pasch (get ready to be annoyed), Brian Griese (good guy), and Tom Luginbill (Luges-good guy)

Refs: C-USA, Clay Martin

Surface: Grass

Weather: 55, mostly cloudy, 0% rain, Wind North @ 2 MPH

Line: Huskies by 3.5

I’m looking forward to this one. The Huskies had a good year under Steve Sarkisian, but he left for USC and Chris Peterson has taken over. Peterson will not be coaching in the bowl game though, as former Washington quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo will be the coach. I like the future for the Huskies program with Peterson in charge–actually think it’s an upgrade in coaching because Peterson is fantastic– but I like this BYU team. I’ve liked them all year. I say BYU pulls off the upset since Washington does not have their coach in place yet and BYU plays some good defense and that will slow down the Washington attack enough. The Huskies offense is led by quarterback Keith Price ,who threw for 2,843 yards and 20 TDs against five ints. Running back Bishop Sankey is a stud as he ran for 1,775 yards and 18 TDs. But I look for BYU linebacker Kyle Van Noy (6’3″, 245)  to have a big game. I see him as a very good next level player. He is a senior. Excellent football player. He had 16 tackles for loss of -61 and four sacks. Is a dominant player. Linebacker Uani’ Unga is fourth in the country in tackles with 136. Quarterback Taysom Hill ran for 1,211 yards and nine TDs and threw for 19 more. This is a good football team. You can’t totally slow down the Huskies, but BYU plays good defense and will do enough along with their offense to pull this one out. Should be a fun game to watch.

BYU 34, Washington 30

Tomorrow

New Era Pinstripe Bowl

Rutgers (6-6) vs. Notre Dame (8-4)

Yankee Stadium, New York, New York (50,287)

Noon ET/11 AM CT

ESPN

Chris Fowler, Jesse Palmer, Paul Carceterra

Refs: MAC, Don Willard

Surface: Grass

Weather: 45, Sunny, 0% rain, Wind, SW @ 13 MPH

Line: ND by 14

This may be a better game than you think. I watched Rutgers beat Arkansas in September and was pretty impressed with their team. Don’t think they’ll beat the Irish, but the Scarlet Knights will make a game of it.

Notre Dame 31, Rutgers 27

Record: Bowls: 6-2; Against the spread in bowls: 6-2; Overall: 131-45 (74%)

Tomorrow’s games:

Will have write ups for the Belk Bowl (North Carolina vs. Cincy), the Russell Athletic Bowl (Miami (Fl) vs. Louisville) and the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (Michigan vs. Kansas State) tomorrow (Saturday) around 10-10:30 AM CT (11-11:30 AM ET) as we continue on to New Year’s Day bowls, BCS bowls and all that comes in between, with key games before, on, and after New Year’s Day  involving SEC and BCS conference schools. The Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday, January 2nd, against OU @ 8:30 PM ET/7:30 CT on ESPN, and AU playing in the BCS national championship game against Florida State at the Rose Bowl on Monday, January, 6th, @ 8:30 PM ET/7:30 CT on ESPN. Will have a lot more on both those games. Should be an epic 10 days. Will have it all on the blog. After tomorrow will have bowl writeups for Monday’s games on Sunday and continue through the week.