Oklahoma Sooners (11-2, 6-2 Big Twelve) vs. Connecticut Huskies (8-4, 5-2 Big East)
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
January 1 - 8:30 pm - ESPN
Glendale, AZ
$17,000,000 payout per team
It was no secret that the Big East, as a conference, had a down year on the field. Three different teams had a chance to take the conference title heading into the final week of play, with the four-loss Connecticut Huskies earning the honors. Now they get to play against the much better Oklahoma Sooners in primetime in the desert. This will not likely be a close game.
Oklahoma and QB Landry Jones should be able to pass and run all over the Huskie defense, a squad that gave up 30 and 27 points to Temple and Rutgers, respectively. Neither of those teams feature in any of the 35 college football bowls this season.
The saving grace for Connecticut could be "Big Game" Bob Stoops' consecutive bowl loss streak. However, not even that should keep this game close. The betting line for this game opened at Oklahoma (-18), and has gone down slightly, but this should be an easy cover for the Sooners.
- SBN Pittsburgh analysis by Jeff Junstrom
SBN PITTSBURGH BOLD PREDICTION: Oklahoma 51, Connecticut 12
This looks like the biggest mismatch of the five BCS games. Oklahoma's only two losses came on the road to Big 12 teams that earned a share of a division title. Two of UConn's four losses came to Temple and Rutgers, a pair of teams that won't be bowling this postseason. But considering Bob Stoops' five-game losing streak in BCS bowl games, anything could happen. -- David Ubben