The Hawai'i bowl will feature a lot of fireworks in the form of the scoreboard blowing up at Aloha Stadium. Hawai'i and Tulsa both have prolific offenses; Hawai'i led the nation in passing offense while Tulsa was fifth in total offense. Unlike Tulsa, Hawai'i actually has a defense as they allowed under 300 yards per game in six of their wins and never gave up more then 400 in any of their 10 wins. The Tulsa defense is very questionable to say the least, they have a porous secondary and allowed opposing quarterbacks to throw for 400 yards in eight different games.
This game will not lack star power at all. Hawai'i has the nation's leading passer in Bryant Moniz who averaged 356.1 yards per game and tie for most touchdowns with 26. Someone had to catch all those balls, and that honor went to Greg Salas who was top three in the nation in yards (1st), receptions (2nd) and touchdowns (3rd). However, Tulsa has their own playmaker in Damaris Johnson who will be the most dynamic player on the field tonight. Johnson lead the nation in all-purpose yards for two years in a row -- somehow was not an All-American -- and is only 295 yards away from breaking the all-time NCAA record, oh and he is only a junior.
Hope your Christmas shopping is done and you can duck away from the family for a couple hours, because this game will be full of offense.
Now onto the picks, Hawai'i is favored by most and this includes my favorite computer friend AccuScore who has Hawai'i winning 40.1 to 30.9 and winning 66 percent of the time.
Then ESPN's national blogger Andrea Adelson again weighs in with her pick:
I have agonized long over this one, because I think both teams can win. Ultimately, I am going with Hawaii 44, Tulsa 38 because the Warriors will be able to take advantage of a weaker Tulsa defense.
My own prediction favors Hawai'i much more then the others. Look for Hawai'i to light up a bad Tulsa defense and win by at least two touchdowns.