Every day (or so) for the next month I will be previewing one of the upcoming college bowl games. I will give my thoughts on the teams playing, players to be on the lookout for, and a general overview of the bowl.

The Emerald Bowl looks great on paper, pitting two storied programs against each other in Florida State and UCLA. It seems hard to believe that a relatively obscure bowl like this would get an ACC vs. Pac-10 matchup. Then you just have to look at the records and the 6-6 FSU record and 7-5 UCLA record makes it fairly obvious why these teams are headed to San Francisco.

Florida State, which typically boasts a good team, has really struggled this year. This could be because of the fact that they have yet to settle in on a quarterback and keep switching between Drew Weatherford and Xavier Lee. I would imagine this would get frustrating as an offensive player, especially a wider receiver. You could never get into a rhythm. With Weatherford you assume its just going to be a pass, but with Lee you could get a pass, or you might have to block down field. If it is a pass from either of these two, it probably isn’t going to end up well. They have a combined 18 touchdowns to 15 interceptions, and that is a really bad ratio. FSU relies on their defense to win games, and really, there isn’t anything wrong with that. The most points they’ve given up was in an ugly 30-0 loss against Wake Forest, but they have played well besides that, keeping it close against a bunch of other tough teams. They lost by five to Boston College and seven to Florida, so they have been putting it together a little bit. The problem is consistency, they don’t have it. Maybe they’ll get it next year when their players mature.

UCLA follows the same path that FSU does. Bad quarterbacking, pretty good running game, and a standout defense. This has been their formula for success all season long. The perfection of this formula is obvious in their victory over USC in the last week of the season. They may not have looked great on offense, but they didn’t let SC score, and they got just enough points to get the win. I guess this is what you could call one of those teams that is just gritty, they just find ways to win. It was this attitude that kept them within three points of Notre Dame and ten points to Oregon. Considering that UCLA is in a rebuilding year, they had very good success. The problem with teams like this is when they get behind, they’re basically done. They don’t have a passing game to speak of, and they can’t afford to just chew up clock. This leads to an obvious trend in UCLA’s season. When they get involved in shootouts they struggle, where if they can manage to keep they game low scoring, they have had success.

This makes the formula for UCLA very simple. Don’t let FSU get into an offensive flow which would allow them to get ahead. If UCLA can strike first, I think that they have the ability to win this one. And I think UCLA will be able to strike first, mainly because consistency isn’t in the vocabulary of Florida State players (no that isn’t a shot at their education level). I’ll be expecting a defensive battle where UCLA refuses to budge to the FSU offense.

My Prediction: UCLA Wins