Sun Bowl Pick
Duke
vs.
Arizona State
12/27/14
The Sun Bowl features two teams that struggled in the final month of the season and neither one of them has had much success historically in bowls either. The Sun Devils opened as high as -9 point favorites, but that’s down to -7.5 at 5 Dimes.
Duke still has not won a bowl Game since 1961 despite this being their third straight postseason appearance. The Blue Devils were aiming to win the ACC’s Coastal Division again, but faltered down the stretch, losing at home to Virginia Tech and big to rivals North Carolina. Still, there’s not much to complain about with a 9-3 record. While their Schedule was one of the weaker ones in the conference, they still had a big road win at Georgia Tech earlier in the year.
Arizona State was in the same situation, looking to win the Pac-12’s South Division. However, the Sun Devils lost two of their final three Games to finish 9-3 and one Game out of first. The first of those losses came at lowly Oregon State and in the season finale they lost 42-35 at rival Arizona. Of course, playing in the Pac-12, ASU has much better wins including USC, Stanford, Utah and Notre Dame. However, this team has lost Four of their last five bowl Games.
The Sun Devils have been one of the higher scoring teams in the nation for most of the year averaging 37 points per Game, while the Blue Devils only allow 20.6 points per Game. Of course, those defensive stats don’t mean as much with their Schedule. They allowed 48 to Pittsburgh (double OT) and 45 to UNC. There’s no doubt Duke will have to Scorepoints to keep up here.
Starting with that Duke offense, they aren’t half bad either. Anthony Boone hasn’t been bad in his first season as the full-time starting QB, but his 56.9% completion rate isn’t great. He has 17 passing TDs and 7 INTs to go with 346 rushing yards and five rushing TDs. They are better on the ground and use a hot-hand approach with three different RBs while averaging 4.9 yards per carry. In the receiving Game Jamison Crowder (942 yards, 6 TDs) had worse numbers than the previous two years, but he’s still the same great receiver.
Duke hasn’t played an offense quite as dynamic as Arizona State’s this year, so that could be an issue.
The Sun Devils are led by two huge playmakers in RB D.J. Foster and WR Jaelen Strong. Quarterback Taylor Kelly has had somewhat of an up-and-down season, maybe due to injury, but he is also a guy to worry about. Foster does it all out of the backfield with 1,002 rushing yards and 646 receiving yards to go with 12 total TDs. Strong (1,062 yards, 10 TDs) is one of the top receivers in the nation and will give Duke plenty of problems.
We’ll get to know just how good the Duke defense is in this Game, but no matter what, they’ll likely need a great effort from Boone to have a chance.
The Sun Devils are 1-5 ATS in their last six bowl Games and only 2-8 ATS in their last 10 Games on turf. The Blue Devils are 4-0 vs. a team with a winning record and 4-1-1 ATS in their last six non-Conference Games.
We’re using the side as a Key Release, so we’ll offer a pick on the total here. We’re going to go against the public here, who is all over the over, and go with UNDER 65.