Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl

Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl

Monday December 31st, 11:00 CST (17:00 GMT)
LP Field, Nashville, Tennessee
North Carolina State Wolfpack vs. Vanderbilt Commodores

The Music City Bowl, under various sponsors' names has been played in Nashville since 1998, the highlight of those sponsorship deals was unquestionably the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl. The Bowl usually contains a matchup between the 8th team in the SEC against the 6th team in the ACC. Last year's game was only the 4th time in the 13 year history of the bowl where the favorites prevailed with the SEC team winning again.

North Carolina State finished 7-5 in the ACC and while their win over conference champions (12)Florida State was impressive, their beating at the hands of North Carolina in their rivalry game and their humiliation in the Textile Bowl against (14)Clemson were low points. They've been a middle-of-the-road team this year, finishing 51st in total yards with 420.9 yards and 71st in scoring offense with 28.4 points per game. Senior quarterback Mike Glennon has carried the offense ranked an impressive 11th in the country with 3648 passing yards, good for 30 TDs but a worrying 14 interceptions. He's spread the ball well and Quinton Payton and Tobias Palmer grabbed 48 and 46 passes respectively. Payton finished with 761 yards, while Palmer snagged 6 TDs. The running game has been poor in comparison, the Wolfpack rank 108th nationally with just 116.9 yards per game. Shadrach Thornton and Tony Creecy combined for 1088 yards and just 7 touchdowns. With the exception of the NC and Clemson games, defense has been good. Although they give up 419.7 yards per game, their approach seems to be more of a bend but don't break approach, surrendering just 24.6 points per game. (especially good considering they shipped 105 points in those two big defeats)

Vanderbilt finished 8-4 in the best conference in college football. Head Coach James Franklin, carried on the improvement from his first season in charge and despite their rough start going 2-4 albeit all four of those losses were to ranked opponents in (10)South Carolina, (20)Northwestern, (7)Georgia and (3)Florida. Their 6 game winning streak to end the season is the longest such streak at Vanderbilt since the 50s. Jordan Rodgers played most of the season under center, only missing the 58-0 win over FCS Presbyterian. He completed nearly 60% of his passes for 2431 yards and 13 TDs, with Jordan Matthews catching 7 of those touchdowns for a school-record 1262 yards. Chris Boyd has complemented Matthews on the other side of the field compiling 756 yards and 4 touchdowns. Zac Stacy was the main man on the ground, eclipsing 1000 yards while punching in 9 touchdowns in a rushing attack that averaged 170.4 yards per game. (54th in the country) The defensive side of the ball is where the Commodores have excelled, the defeats to (7)Georgia (48 points) and (3)Florida (31 points) were the only time they gave up more than 26 points, averaging just 18.3 points against all season. Especially impressive is their passing defense, the 9th best in the country, allowing a measly 175.8 yards per game, and while their rushing defense hasn't quite been to that level, they still rank 17th nationally with 326.4 total yards per game.

FOR NC STATE TO WIN
Take the small gains, and keep them coming. Vanderbilt don't give up too many big yards on defense, especially against the pass, yet that's NC State's strength. They will need to take 4, 5 and 6 yard gains, and trust their receivers to make the yards after they catch the ball. With the absence of a coherent and consistent running game, unless they can step up big in this game, the passing game has to replace that. We've seen many offenses in the NFL, Brady's Patriots and Manning's Colts most successfully, use this tactic to win a lot of games and a few rings between them. The Wolfpack have to keep the chains moving against this Vanderbilt defense and if they can get Glennon into a rhythm throwing short passes underneath the safeties, he may be able to make that back-breaking 50-60 yard throw down-field later in the game.

FOR VANDERBILT TO WIN
Play the first down marker on defense and share the load on offense. They have an excellent passing defense, but they face a quarterback who has over 3500 yards on the year, so Zone-2 may be used extensively in this game, in that case, they can't allow those cheap screen passes or quick hits to the tight end across the middle to pick up first downs. They have to make NC State pick up the dirty yards running the football. When they have the ball in their hands, they don't have such a one dimensional attack as NC State, so they can spread the offense throughout the side. They have two big targets on the outside in Matthews and Boyd and as we've seen in most of these Bowl games, a good running game is key. If Stacy can pick up first downs on the ground, that allows Rodgers the time to find his receivers for bigger gains and control this game.

VERDICT
The key to the victory in this game is the NC State passing game against the Commodores' passing defense, and having watched a couple of good defensive units this season in Bowl games, that's the side I'm going to favor. Glennon has shown this season he's prone to coughing the ball up, and if Vanderbilt can take the ball away from him early, he will try to compensate for that by throwing it even more. The more they move away from the running game, the less their chances become. I fancy the Vanderbilt defense to strangle this game and allow their own running game to take over and carry them to the win.

ADVICE
Vanderbilt -7.5
Under 51.5 points

DRINKING GAME
1 drink: Any Lionel Richie reference
2 drinks: Anyone says “Black Caps”
Finish it: Any comparison between Jordan Rodgers and Aaron Rodgers