BCS Preview #3- Orange Bowl

Today we have the fourth of our five BCS Bowls of the season. All debates about whether this system is better or worse then a playoff aside, these figure to be some of the best games of the year. Today we have the Orange Bowl.

ORANGE BOWL (8:30 pm, ESPN)

This year's Orange Bowl has the #23 West Virginia Mountaineers, champions of the Big East, facing the #14 champions of the ACC, the Clemson Tigers. Both teams feature high powered offenses with a bunch of players who have the potential to be impact players. Both teams average north of 33 points per game, and rack up the offensive yards as well.

Clemson's offense set school records this year in passing yards, total yards, and scoring. Their high octane attack is led by Sophomore Quarterback Tajh Boyd, who threw for 3578 yards this year and completed 60% of his passes. He is a very good young quarterback who is just mobile enough to keep a defense honest. Boyd's main target is Wide Receiver Sammy Watkins, the dynamic freshman who caught 77 passes this year for 1153 yards and 11 touchdowns. Watkins does much of his damage in the YAC category, with 60.5% of his yards coming after he gets the ball. Watkins was an All- American, and was joined on that squad by teammate TE Dwayne Allen, who has 8 tocuhdowns from Boyd himself. Allen won the John Mackey Award, which is given each season to the nations best tight end. Clemson also has a 1,000 yard rusher at running back in Junior Andre Ellington.

West Virginia's offense is equally explosive. Geno Smith is the star under center. The junior from Miami is the architect of the Mountaineers' offense, which is based highly on timing and yards after the catch. Smith has thrown for almost 4000 yards this year, and competes his passes at a 65% clip. His favorite target is Junior Tavon Austin, who has 89 catches for 1063 yards. Much like Clemson's Watkins, Austin has a high YAC average. Smith also has deep threat in WR Stedman Bailey. Bailey, a sophomore, had 11 touchdowns and a school record 1197 yards .One potential problem for West Virginia, however, is the injury to star freshman running back Dustin Garrison, who tore his ACL and MCL in a non-contact drill in preparations for this game. Garrison was on the Big East All-Freshman team and had 742 yards and 6 touchdowns. The Mountaineers will rely on Shawne Alston and Andrew Buie to carry the load at running back.

This game will feature a lot of offense, just like the Monday BCS games. This game will be a shootout, and whoever has the better quarterback play will be the team to win the game.

Prediction- West Virginia 42, Clemson 38