Nebraska at Arizona (12/30/2009)

Nebraska - 21                             Arizona - 20

Wildcats +3                           over 40

Points look good to me bp

Favorites covered 3 straight Holiday bowls,,, might be a good spot for the dog to cover one.

On paper this game looks like two evenly matched teams with more than likely a 50-50 split on the fans that will be there.  Therefore how can Nebraska be giving 3 points, quite simply no one has been talking about Arizona the last few weeks where all anyone has heard about is how great Nebraska's D-Line is.  I believe that Arizona's offense is considerably better than Nebraska's offense, and these defenses are both very stout.  With all the media hype about Suh these last few weeks you would've thought he won the heisman, and you know how these overhyped players teams usually perform in bowl games, never as good as expected most times.  Therefore with the public all over Nebraska and Suh i have to say i'm going with Arizona +3.

Nebraska -3. The cornhuskers really should have been the Big 12 champions. But with only 1 second left, that all went away. The way Nebraska played against Texas, is big time motivated football. The Zona o-line will not be able to contain Ndamukong Suh. This guy is a freak of nature. I also like RB Roy Helo (1139) rushing yds and (10) rushing tds to run the ball down zona's throat.

Huskers are still steaming from the Big 12 Championship game.

Pac 10 is hard to figure out and they are playing below their competition in these bowl games ( so they thought) but tell that to oreg.st and cal. Defense wins football games and there is no defense in the pac10 so I like nebraska - az won't know what hit them over and over again. D wins this one for  huskers along with some hard running on the ground.

Nebraska husks the cats  25 - 10 and pac 10 will start to husk each other here on out.

Arizona +3

Arizona vs. Nebraska

Some stats....

• Nebraska's wins have come against Florida Atlantic, Arkansas State, UL Layafatte, Missouri, Baylor, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Kansas State. Not very impressive if you ask me. 2 wins against bowl teams. Their losses have come against Virginia Tech, Texas, Iowa State, Texas Tech. All bowl teams. To me this shows that they beat who they should, and lose to good competition
• Arizona wins have come against Central Michigan, Northern Arizona, UCLA, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington State, Arizona State, USC. A very impressive list with 5 bowl teams on it.
• Arizona comes in feeling good after beating USC. Nebraska comes in sad because of their near upset of Texas.

Nebraska Offensive Breakdown:

Points Scored: 80
Total Yards: 101
Pass Yards: 101
Rush Yards: 67

Arizona Defensive Breakdown:

Points Allowed: 45
Total Yards Allowed: 22
Pass Yards Allowed: 40
Rush Yards Allowed: 24

Analysis: Nebraska's offense is bad. Very bad. They do not move the ball at all. They are better rushing but still aren't very good. Arizona has a very good run defense. They held Rodgers to 85 yards and Gerhart to 107 and 4 yards per rush. Nebraska's offense usually comes off their defense. Their defense sets up the short field for their offense with turnovers and 3 and outs. Arizona is pretty good at protecting the ball. They also have a very solid 3rd down conversion rate of 44%. So the Nebraska offense may be forced to put long drives together to score, which they are not very good at. I don't expect a lot of success out of the Nebraska
offense.

Arizona Offensive Breakdown:

Points Scored: 41
Total Yards: 39
Pass Yards: 39
Rush Yards: 45

Nebraska Defensive Breakdown:

Points Allowed: 2
Total Yards Allowed: 9
Pass Yards Allowed: 24
Rush Yards Allowed: 10

Analysis: I'm a little worried about Arizona offense as well. The best defense they have faced this year is Iowa. They lost 27-17 and 7 of their points came off a pick 6. I'm not putting too much significance in that becasue it was very early in the season and that is when they made the QB change. One more worrysomet thing is Nebraska's best defensive showings have come against ranked teams. They have held ranked teams to an average of 11 points per game. Arizona does have a very balanced offense. They rank in the top 50 in both Rushing and Passing offense. This balance may be key. If Arizona can keep Nebraska guessing on run/pass, they may have some success. Once again I dont expect a lot of success out of Arizona offense, but if they do, its because of their balanced offense.


Other Stuff....

Net Punt Avg:
Nebraska: 34.9 yards
Arizona: 34.8 yards

Avg Punt Return (For, then against)
Nebraska: 11.3 yards, 12.2 yards
Arizona: 16.4 yards, 12.8 yards

Avg. Kick Return (For, then against)
Nebraska: 23.3 yards, 19.1 yards
Arizona: 25.4 yards, 20.9 yards

Field Goal:
Nebraska: 20 for 24
Arizona: 17 for 22

Penalties / yards per game
Nebraska: 7.2 / 64.5
Arizona: 5.7 / 43.7

3rd Down Conversion (offensive):
Nebraska: 37%
Arizona: 44%

3rd Down Conversion (defensive):
Nebraska: 33%
Arizona: 34%

Red Zone Scores (offensive)
Nebraska: 80%
Arizona: 76%

Red Zone Scores (defensive)
Nebraska: 67%
Arizona: 85%

Analysis: Arizona is very good on special teams. They have good return teams which could be big in a defensive struggle. Also average less penalties per game.

Overall: While I'm not very confident in my play, I will be playing Arizona small. Also lean OVER.

Arizona: 24
Nebraska: 20

Irish im with ya on dissin' the pac10 and then watching them kick some ass, so I think 'zona finds a way to block suh just long enough and i look for them to win SU.

Arizona SU