Music City Bowl Pick
LSU
vs.
Notre Dame
12/30/14
There was a time when both of these teams had College Football Playoff aspirations, but those quickly disintegrated as the season went along. The better defensive team gets the nod with LSU being a -7 point favorite over Notre Dame in the Music City Bowl.
Notre Dame probably had one of the most disappointing ends to the season of any team in the country. They started 6-0 and were up to No. 5 in the rankings until an unfortunate offensive pass interference call cost them at Florida State in their first loss. That led to five losses in the Irish’s final six Games. Their defense allows 29 points per Game on the season, but removing the first five Games against bad offenses (allowed 17 or less in each of them) and the Irish closed the season allowing 41.6 points per Game in their final seven contests. That includes an inexplicable 43-40 home loss to Northwestern in overtime.
LSU didn’t have quite the drop off finishing with one more win at 8-4, but the Tigers didn’t reach expectations. Their offense failed them multiple times. A 41-7 loss at then-No. 5 Auburn dashed their hopes, but the team never really gave up and went on to beat Ole Miss when they were the No. 3 team and fell to Alabama in OT their next Game.
After losing loads of talent on the offensive end, the Tigers have become a defensive heavy team with an offense that didn’t cut it in the SEC. The defense allowed 16.4 points per Game which won them a few Games by themselves.
LSU has the obvious advantage because of those numbers. Even with a bad offense, this Tigers team should still be able to Scoreon Notre Dame. They have a solid running Game behind freshman Leonard Fournette (891 yards, 8 TDs) who has taken over as the lead tail back averaging 5.1 yards per carry, but the senior Terrence Magee will still get his touches. Quarterback has been a question all season long and Anthony Jennings will be playing for a spot as next year’s starter for this team. He simply has not been good for this team, completing 48.8% of his passes for 10 TDs and 7 INTs. While he is a mobile guy, you don’t beat teams like Alabama with those kinds of numbers.
If Notre Dame’s defense doesn’t pick it up, LSU should move the ball decently on the ground. The question is what the Irish will look like on offense where they are also having issues. It doesn’t help that LSU probably has the best defense they’ve seen all season.
This used to be Everett Golson’s team, but he is now fighting for the starting job in 2015 after turning the ball over a ridiculous 22 times this season. He was careless down the stretch which hurt his team in addition to a poor defense.
Golson is still a playmaker (29 TDs) and if he plays his Game, they can put up points. But if the offense looks like they did in a 14-point showing against USC, Mailk Zaire may get a chance to prove his worth again at quarterback. It’s doubtful the Irish can get the ground Game going against LSU, but if they do it will likely be with Tarean Folston (816 yards, 5 TDs), who has given a spark at times this season. In the receiving Game William Fuller (1,037 yards, 14 TDs) will get tons of attention as he’s their top guy by far.
If Golson holds onto the football and moves the chains like he did for most of the season, this can be a close Game. But that’s a big question going against a top defense.
The Fighting Irish are 2-6 ATS in their last eight bowl Games and have not covered in five straight Games overall. The Tigers have covered in Four straight non-Conference Games, but are 1-4 ATS in their last five bowl Games.
We’re using the side as a key release to Our subscribers. So no free play on the side here. However, we’ll offer an opinion on UNDER 52.5.