New Orleans Bowl (Arkansas State vs.
Jacksonville State) -
Dec. 16 - 2:15 p.m. on ESPNAs I said earlier, this is a bland matchup in my least favorite bowl location, but on the plus side, it gives the Gamecocks a tough but winnable game against a Sun Belt opponent. We need CUSA teams to win every bowl, but ESPECIALLY against the Sun Belt, since they're the only ones whose heads provide us a place to live rent free. Jax State just needs to do its part and take care of the Red Wolves.
Well, it's pretty much confirmed now that we will, in fact, be in the New Orleans Bowl, but against the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana rather than Arky State.
My original review of this game is mostly still true... but that first sentence is a little different. Take out "bland" and replace it with "solid" or "intriguing" or even "spicy".
LA-La has been really good the past few years. But after a coaching change and a wave of transfers (both in and out) the Cajuns are a shadow of their former selves. They barely qualified for a bowl with a 6-6 overall record, and their 3-5 conference record was only good enough for 5th in the weak SBC West.
The Ragin' Cajuns scored a respectable 387 points on offense, but allowed 338 on defense. One of their wins was over FCS NW State. One of their losses was to Minnesota of the Big Ten. They looked pretty good against UAB, Buffalo, USA, and ULM, but and really only looked terrible against Ark State. They were solidly in pretty much every other game.
They like to throw the ball, with a 221.8 yards-per-game average through the air against 183.5 ypg rushing. However, the injury bug has hit their QB room hard. They had a dangerous starting QB, Zeon Chriss (1222 yards and 11 TDs passing with 5 INTs; 492 yards and 6 TDs rushing), but he broke his fibula against Arkansas State on Nov 4, and is lost for the season. Ben Wooldridge was also capable at QB (508 yards. 5 TDs, 1 INT), but he's lost for the season as well.
In their absence, Chandler Fields has proven to be a capable starter with 914 yards and 7 TDs against 3 INTs. If Fields comes out, they'll have to turn to freshman D'Wayne Winfield, who saw only limited action against ULM.
The Cajuns have allowed a bunch of sacks, with 22 spread among the three quarterbacks. This bodes well for the hungry Gamecock D.
Rushing, they're led by Jacob Kibodi's 729 yards and 7 TDs. QB Chriss has added an additional 492 yards and 6 TDs on the ground.
They are not led by a single dominant receiver, spreading it around quite a bit. Five receivers are over 300 yards for the season, with only one over 470 yards.
We don't want to keep it close enough for the kicker to be a factor. Not only will we be missing AK47, but LA-La's Kenneth Almendares is 13-14 on field goals and 46-47 on extra points. He's not a long range guy, but he's deadly inside 40 yards.
Defensively, linebacker K.C. Ossai leads the team with 70 total tackles. Safety Tyrone Lewis Jr. adds 66 tackles and leads the team in INTs with 3. Linebacker Kendre' Gant adds another 65 tackles to go with 6 sacks. D-lineman Jordan Lawson leads the team in sacks with 7.
Bottom line?
This won't be an "easy" game by any means, but it's a great matchup for the Gamecocks, and a great chance to earn a win for CUSA over the Sun Belt. LA-La will have at least a slight home-field advantage, with the game in New Orleans, but many Cajun fans are saying they're not expecting a huge crowd. If the Gamecock nation turns up in decent numbers, we could at least take the crowd out as a factor in the game.
One thing's certain: Even a potentially depleted Marching Southerners will blow the Pride of Acadiana out of the Superdome. They've got decent size (200+) but don't have the sound to match Jax State.
If Jax State plays like it's capable of playing, we could win this one by 20. If we play like we did in the first half against NMSU, it could be a long afternoon. We'll see who shows up.
Oh... one more thing... if nothing else, our opponent's tailgating offerings should be VASTLY improved. Lafayette's food is so much better than New Orleans, and I'm not even going to bother comparing Arkansas to either.
