2010 Texas Bowl Odds
Written by Jack Jones
The 2010 Texas Bowl takes place on Wednesday, December 29 and it features two teams who bounced back from rough years to reach the postseason. The Baylor Bears (7-5) will have a nice home-field advantage for this one as they take on the Illinois Fighting Illini (6-6) down in Houston, Texas. Baylor’s campus is in Waco, which is only a three hour drive for their fans. Reliant Stadium in Houston is the same place that Baylor’s basketball game against Duke took place in the Elite 8 last spring. It was a pro-Baylor crowd with 47,492 fans in attendance. College bowl lines for this contest show us odds of Baylor -1 over Illinois with a total set of 63 points.
This is a monumental occasion for Baylor football, as they have not participated in a bowl game since a 10-3 loss to Washington State back on December 31, 1994 in the Alamo Bowl. The Bears last won a bowl game in 1992 in the John Hancock Bowl in El Paso with a 20-15 victory over Arizona. Baylor has known they were going to play in a bowl game for nearly two months now and actually had bigger aspirations after their 7-2 start. The Bears were in the discussion to win the Big 12 South, but lost their final three games of the regular season to quality opponents.
Baylor owns one of the best offenses in the country behind the play of QB Robert Griffin and running back Jay Finley. Griffin has thrown for 3,195 yards and 21 touchdowns to 8 interceptions while also rushing for 591 yards and 8 scores. Finley rushed for 1,155 yards and 11 touchdowns on only 183 carries. This is a Baylor offense that rushed for 200.5 yards and throws for 278.0 yards, and their 478.5 total yards per game ranks 12th in the country. Their defense is little to be desired, though, with a unit that ranks 96th in the land giving up 427.3 yards per contest.
Illinois will be making only their fourth bowl trip in the last 16 seasons, and their second in the last 9 as well. Like Baylor, the Fighting Illini are excited to be playing in the postseason though it may just be a mid-level bowl game. Illinois already played against Michigan QB Denard Robinson, which should help them prepare for Griffin. The Fighting Illini like to run the football as they rank 13th in the country at 242.3 yards per game on the ground. They also have the much better defense in this game, a stop unit that ranks 35th in the land at 344.1 total yards per game allowed.
The Fighting Illini are led by junior running back Mikel Leshoure, who ranks as the No. 8 rusher in the country at 126.1 yards per game. He posted the single-biggest game of any running back in the FBS, rushing for 330 yards against Northwestern on November 20. Just two weeks prior, LeShoure scored five straight Illini touchdowns in a back-and-forth 67-65 triple-overtime loss to Michigan. QB Nathan Scheelhaase has been a pleasant surprise for Illinois, throwing for 1,583 yards and 17 touchdowns to 8 interceptions while also rushing for 815 yards and 4 scores. Baylor will have their hands full trying to slow down this rushing attack.
BetUS Projected Score: Baylor 32 – Illinois 31
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