AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2007 > December > 19
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Bring on the Poinsettia Bowl!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bowl season starts Thursday and, except for LSU and Ohio State in the BCS championship game, these match-ups are about setting the table for next season. Coaches want to win their bowl games in order to send their players into the off-season workouts with a positive memory and their coaches on the recruiting trail with something good to sell.
With that in mind, here are my top five story lines among the non-BCS, non-New Years Day games. I’ll come back with the best BCS and NYD story lines after Christmas.
1. Bring on the Poinsettia Bowl!: Thursday’s Poinsettia Bowl between Navy and Utah just picked up a lot of new viewers: Georgia Tech fans who want to get a glimpse of what life will be like under Paul Johnson, the Yellow Jackets’ new coach. Now Georgia Tech’s offense won’t be exactly like the triple option you’ll see in the Thursday’s bowl game, but some of the principles will be the same. This team has led the nation in rushing four of the last five seasons. You’ll also see that Navy is a well-coached team from top to bottom. Then you’ll imagine what Johnson could do with ACC caliber athletes.
2. Auburn and the spread offense: You have to give Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville credit for this: He is not afraid to think outside the box. Offensive coordinator Al Borges is nudged out the door and he hires Tony Franklin, a spread offense guru from Troy. And Tuberville’s not waiting until spring practice to begin installing the new offense. He’s doing it while getting ready for the Chick-fil-A Bowl against Clemson on Dec. 31. Franklin won’t be the OC for the bowl game, but knowing Tuberville he’ll want to try some things out against Clemson in order to be able to hit the ground running next spring.
3. Kevin Smith versus an SEC defense: Kevin Smith of UCF, the nation’s leading rusher, has announced that he’ll return for his senior season. He should have gotten more support for the Heisman Trophy in 2007 but by the time he reached everybody’s radar this season it was too late. He’ll get a chance to start next season in the Heisman discussion if he puts up some good numbers against Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 29. The Bulldogs were No. 8 in the SEC in stopping the run (159.0 ypg) but it is an SEC defense and that is what potential voters will remember.
4. Will Florida State get embarrassed? Reports out of Tallahassee reveal that as many as 25 Florida State players could miss the Music City Bowl against Kentucky because of an academic cheating scandal. The last thing Bobby Bowden’s program needed was a week of bad PR leading up to the bowl game. If this team is uninspired and gets blown out by Kentucky, it will be a very unpleasant off-season for Bowden and the calls for him to retire will increase.
5. How interested is Georgia Tech in Boise? When an interim coach is running the show for the bowl game, a team usually goes one of two ways. Either it plays with reckless abandon and has a lot of fun or the guys just pack it in due to a lack of interest. My sense is that this Georgia Tech team will do the former under Jon Tenuta in the Humanitarian Bowl against Fresno State. You might as well play hard because there is nothing to lose and for some of the seniors on this team, this will be the last football game they will ever play. But this has been a hard team to read.
