squarelogo/Shutterstock
This year’s Gator Bowl pitches an up and coming SEC team in A&M against a slightly overachieving ACC one in North Carolina State who hit 9-3 largely thanks to a very favourable schedule. This could end up as one of the more one-sided Bowls this year.
Texas A&M has a great coach in Jimbo Fisher – who has done well to get them to 8-4 in his first year in charge, and they have a monster at Running back in Trayveon Williams. Schedule-wise their losses have been close generally – including a narrow 2 point loss to Clemson and a 4 point loss to Auburn. Being well beaten by Alabama is the norm this year and losing to Miss State is nothing to get too upset about. Their wins haven’t been astounding, but they did end Kentucky’s unbeaten season and of course, they edged that marathon against LSU 74-72. In non-conference play, they put a pretty good Power Five team in UAB firmly in their place, and we would rate NC State as being only a little better than the Blazers hence out confidence in this selection.
NC State’s nine wins have come against decent teams but nothing like the schedule AM has played. Their losses were not too shabby either in Clemson Syracuse and Wake Forest, however, we think they will be overmanned offensively and that Finley will struggle to get anything going. Defensively they don’t stack up well against A&M who will run the ball control, the clock and grind them down as the game goes on.
Our prediction is for Texas A&M to win 48-17.
Image Credit squarelogo/Shutterstock
