| 21 December 2009
Mississippi Rebels (8-4) vs No. 19 Oklahoma State Cowboys (9-3)
AT&T Cotton Bowl Dallas Cowboys Stadium Arlington, TX
College Football: Saturday January 2, 2010 2 PM EST (Fox)
The Line: Oklahoma State +3
One of the oldest bowl games gets a new home as the Cotton Bowl moves to Dallas Cowboys Stadium as the defending Cotton Bowl Champs, the Mississippi Rebels take on the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
It started as a season of huge promise for Oklahoma State as they had a core of talented and experienced players returning including QB Zac Robinson and a wide receiver who was a Heisman candidate, Dez Bryant. The Cowboys had a thrilling and gutsy season opening win against Georgia but then lost to Houston. Before long, Bryant was suspended by the NCAA for the season for lying during an investigation. The wheels never completely came off the cart for OSU but they never reached their potential either. The Cowboys other two losses came to Big 12 perennial powerhouses Texas and arch rival Oklahoma in the Bedlam game. Without Bryant the Okie State passing attack ranked 86th in the country and the Cowboys dedicated themselves to running the football as they averaged over 200 yards a game and ranked 18th in the country. Defensively it was very tough to run on the cowboys as they gave up a mere 82 yards per game on the ground. This mark was good enough to rank them eighth in the country and even though they were vulnerable against the pass, they still ranked 34th in yards allowed per game at 326.4 and 39th in points allowed per game at 21.3. Oklahoma State played gamely all year but they simply were not the same team without Bryant in the line up.
A few years ago 8-4 would have been a dream season for the Ole Miss Rebels, this year with expectations sky high, it was a bit of a let down. Playing in the tough SEC West, Mississippi knew they were going to have their work cut out for them but with a favorable schedule which didn't include Florida from the East and had most of the toughest West teams at home and only had four games overall on the road, there were serious National Championship dreams and talk going on in Oxford. Jevan Snead was seen as a Heisman Trophy front runner early on as well but the QB quickly fell off the map as the Rebels lost in just their third game of the season, at South Carolina. Mississippi would seem to get momentum going and just when it looked like they were going to get over the hump, they would lose again. As they got Dexter McCluster more involved in the offense, the better the team was but in the end, it wasn't good enough. The toughest loss was easily the loss to Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, a game in which the Rebels were just dominated. In their defense, Ole Miss lost two first round draft choices to the NFL draft and it was only head coach Houston Nutt's second year, there is good reason to be hopeful for better years ahead.
Mississippi hae covered in their last seven out of conference games and are 4-1-1 against the spread in their last six bowl games. Ole Miss is also 0-10-2 against teh spread in their last 12 games as a favorite between 1/2 to three points and 1-4 against teh spread in their last five as a favorite overall. Oklahoma State is 11-5 against the spread in their last 16 games following a loss but they are 0-5 against the spread as an underdog.
This should be a good game with two power conferences, the SEC and the Big 12 nicely represented. Both of these teams had big aspirations and both came up on the short end against the better teams in their conference though Ole Miss did beat LSU in one of the odder finishes you'll ever see. In any event, McCluster is just a handful to stop for sixty minutes but I think Oklahoma State can keep up and also slow down the rebels enough to cover with the points.
Mitch's Pick: Oklahoma State + 3
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