Pat Fitzgerald has done a great job with this team over the last few years, but now it's finally time to get a bowl victory and I think they lucked out with a winnable match up. Fitzgerald should have the advantage in this game and I'm betting they end their bowl win drought that dates back to 1949. Miss State on the other hand is 5-0 in their last 5 but they closed the season losing 4 of their last 5 after dominating against a cupcake schedule earlier in the year.
Miss State has gotten it done by winning the turnover battle as they were +20 in their wins and -3 in their 4 losses. Well guess what Northwestern has just 12 turnovers on the year and is +13. IF anything I see Northwestern being able to win the turnover battler here today. Miss State will have to contend with a dual threat QB in Kain Colter and we saw how they were embarrassed when they went up against Johny Manziel. Northwestern will run the ball 60% of the time and Miss State is 65th allowing 4.3 ypc. ON the flip side Northwestern's run defense is 28th and allows 3.7 ypc they were 0-2 when they allowed more than 150 yards while Miss State was 0-4 when they could not break the 100 yard barrier.
Northwestern should be able to shut down the run in this game making Miss State pass it which is something they are comfortable doing, but Tyler Russell is good for a game where he does not complete 60% of his passes and with all the time to prepare Northwestern should be able to do that as Miss State was 101st in third down conversions this year and there were a couple games where Russell could not complete 50% of his passes against bad pass defenses (Troy and South Alabama come to mind). On the other side I think Northwestern will be able to pass the ball a bit as Miss State is terrible at getting to the QB. Despite having two NFL CB in Johnathan Banks and Darius Slay this team still allows QB's to complete 65% of their passes. Northwestern QB's have combined for just 4 interceptions and are smart and I think they'll take what is given to them which will mean a victory for Northwestern.
