Angle Plays For Texas Tech-Cal in Holiday Bowl

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a few angles to the Tech-Cal game:

Cal #3 on offense #4 on defense

Tech #7 offense #36 defense

Cal under Tedford is 9-0-1 away as favorite on natural grass as 14 point favorites or less.

Tech is 5-8 ATS on grass. 1-2 this year

Texas Tech faced the #19 toughest schedule. Cal #29

Tech is 2-3 ATS against bowl teams TY but has outgained them by 427-372 ypg

Cal is 4-1 ATS against bowl teams this year outgaining opponents by 155 ypg

Tech has the better passing game

Cal the better run game

QB-Cal

RB-Cal huge

WR-Tech

DL- Cal huge

LB-Cal

DB-Cal

Surface-Grass goes to Cal huge

Intangibles: Cal was obviously disappointed not to be in a BCS game. But I'm not buying for one minute the fact that this team won't play because of it. As stated above the grass surface is a big factor. And as it is in the Rose Bowl every year, the Holiday Bowl will have a huge Pac 10 fanbase advantage. Tech has won their last 2 bowl games against much lesser opponents. But this is by far the most prestigious bowl that they've been in under coach Leach. Tech has lost games this year against the Big 12's top 2 teams OU 28-13 and Texas 51-21. I want to add that in the OU game Stoops went against his "run up the score" attitude against good friend Leach and played a very conservative game as they always do before playing Texas. OU also took a knee at the 5 yard line with time running out or else the score would have been worse. And against Texas they showed their true self, and like with OU their offense coudn't get the job done. And their defensive line was outmanned badly by both teams. Cal has the #4 defense and more important has the #7 pass defense. I believe without Tech being able to utilize their speed on the natural grass surface like they do at home on astroturf, they are going to have problems with long drives against this Cal team. The dink and dunk passes aren't going to cut it here. Because of the wide receiver situation with Cal I expect to see a lot of running in this game with their outstanding RB J.J.Arrington. And RB and FB catching passes coming out of the backfield. I don't believe Cal is that one dimensional without their leading WR Geoff McArthur. Remember what "One Dimensional" Texas did to Tech's defense. Tech will get their fair share of yardage here, but like they do against other good defenses they'll have trouble punching it into the endzone because of their lack of a running game. I expect Cal to take care of business here. Because of injuries it won't the big blowout it would have been. But enough to cover the 12.5 spread here. CAL wins 34-17