SMU gets a home game as they take on Army in the Armed Forces Bowl and they get to keep their coach as well. SMU head coach June Jones was speculated to be on Maryland's radar, but Jones ended that rumor by saying he intends to stay at SMU. Army is making their first bowl appearance since they lost to Auburn in the 1996 Independence Bowl.
These two teams are complete opposites as Army runs the triple option and SMU slings the ball around with four and five wide receiver sets. Army's triple option and ended the season 10th in the nation in rushing and will be a good challenge for SMU who's rushing defense is just on the north side of a top 50 rush defense. The rushing leaders for Army are their running back Jared Hassin and quarterback Trent Steelman who combined for just over 1,600 yards and 20 touchdowns.
SMU's passing offense is lead by sophomore Kyle Padron who was a top 20 passer and threw for 3,500 yards and 29 touchdowns. The offense produced some solid numbers but offense could only score 26 points per game which was good enough for 64th in the nation.
The Vegas experts have SMU as a touchdown favorite which is how I think the game will end up if not even more.
Now onto the predictions for the game.
Rivals - Each of the five Rivals writers yet again all pick the same choice with SMU in this game as do 77 percent of Yahoo users in the Pick'em game.
CBS Sports - Starting to see a patter here yet again as all CBS Sports writers go with SMU.
USA Today - Six of the eight writers stick with the majority of the rest and take SMU.
Fanhouse - Brett McMurphy makes his picks by the spread and takes SMU to cover.
AccuScore - The computer sticks with the trend and takes SMU 57.3 percent of the time with an average score which is closer then what most are predicting at 29.9 to 26.2.
ESPN Bloggers - National blogger Andrea Adelson picks SMU to win 30-20.
The Armed Forces Bowl kicks off at 10 a.m. (MT) on ESPN at Gerald Ford Stadium.