More pointless bowls after New Year’s Day? Heck Nah! This game matters! To Dallas Fort Worth and the five people that aren’t Steelers fans in Pittsburgh. Okay, enough bitterness about the Bowl System. If it’s a bowl, we got it covered here at TBBC!
The Basics: Saturday, January 7, 2012, 1:00 PM EST on ESPN, from Birmingham, Alabama. SMU (7-5, 5-3 CUSA) and Pitt (6-6, 4-3 Big East).
History: Formerly known as the Papajohns.com, All-American, Hall of Fame and Dixie Bowl, this is the second year that BBVA Compass has been the main sponsor of Saturday’s event. Pitt returns after a big win over Kentucky last season. UCONN beat toUSC in 2010 pretty easily as well. The bowl was established in Birmingham in 2006, but there is a rich history of bowl games in the city in years past.
SMU: So…. June Jones isn’t the coach for Arizona State. He is only looking for win number 100 as a head coach at the D1 level, against the team of Todd Graham – Who Arizona State swapped from Pittsburgh. Oh how college football is a mess sometimes. The Mustangs will look to J.J. McDermott to lead a very inconsistent offense. SMU will be without Zach Line, who had season ending surgery in November. He is one of five in SMU history to have two 1,000 yard seasons. They surely have struggled on defense this year, but look for SMU to exploit Pitt’s 55 sacks given up with blitzing and aggressive line play.
Big Win: @TCU Key Losses: USM, Houston, Texas A&M
Pitt: Is there a player on this roster that you know? Quarterback Tino Sunseri doesn’t count. It seems like he has been in Pitt forever. Top running back Ray Graham will be out of this one and defensive coordinator Keith Patterson will be inserted on the interim as head coach (even though Paul Chryst is done coaching…). Insanely they are looking for their fourth straight bowl victory. I guess that’s as close as calling a team “Toilet Bowl Champions.”
Big Win: South Florida Key Losses: Utah, Cinci, Iowa, West Virginia
Fun Fact: Legion Field was built in 1926 and cost a total of 429,000 dollars to construct.
Who We Got:
- Chris – USM
- Eric – USM
- James – Pitt
- JoeD – USM
- JoeL – USM
- Chuck – USM
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