No Small Task

Every one in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Durham and Greenville are all giddy because they are all going bowling  and we are not talking about trying to make strikes and knock all the pens down.  All four schools have plans that if you buy tickets through their athletic clubs you can get tickets that sits you with everyone else pulling for your favorite team.

That means you will probably sit in one of the worse seats in the football stadium  because all the good seats are held by the sponsor and most of  the time they reward top notch employees or high paying customers who buys product produced by the bowl sponsor.  I am sure if you call the stadium or buy on line somewhere you can get a better seat.  When you do that your school doesn't get credit for selling their allotment  even though you will be there pulling for them.  Let's take a look to see the matchups.

NC State versus University of Central Florida:  Pack gets shot to play the team just last week ECU wrapped up a Christmas present for in Greenville.  UCF is 9-3 and only travel from Orlando to St Pete so there should be a mostly Knights crowd. UCF only has one bad lost on their schedule losing to Connecticut.

The Pack finished the season on a upswing finishing up 7-5.  Losses to Florida St., Clemson, Louisville, Boston College and Georgia Tech.  Four of those losses were to four teams in top 21 in the RPI and the loss to BC they are 47th.  UCF will be about a 6.5 point favorite.

Carolina 6-6 takes on Rutgers 7-5 in Detroit in the Fast Lane a Bowl.  Carolina gave up points in buckets while Rutgers lost big to every good team in Big Ten while they won big against the bad teams.  Sounds like these two are a prefect fit for each other.  Should be high scoring and suspect this game will go point or point in a half either way to toss up.

Duke 9-3 - Arizona State 9-3:  Sun Devils  18th in RPI while Duke is 30th ASU strength of schedule is 43 while Duke is 243.  Duke surely avoided the heavy weights in ACC this year.  Even though both have equal records ASU will be about eight point favorite in this game.  Duke's advantage coach Cut has almost three weeks to get his troops ready.

ECU 8-4 - Florida 6-5.:  Here is Pirates chance against a named football program which the Pirates thrive.  I am sure Pirate Nation will flock to Birmingham where they will be meeting  a program who may not have a head coach by then.  Despite the better record the named program will be favored by Vegas.  Look for the Gators to be eight point favorites.  All the chaos in Gainesville the Pirates have a shot at upset even though records this would not really be upset. They are playing the Big Bad SEC which would be another notch on ECU's gun belt if they knock over a big name.