College Bowl Season Week 2

Thursday, December 20th

BYU vs San Diego State
San Diego County Credit Poinsettia Bowl @ 01:00 on ESPN

Two former WAC rivals will face each other in what should be a hard fought and physical matchup. BYU's are better than their 7-5 record belies, their losses came against three ranked teams in Boise State, Oregon State and Notre Dame and two more quality teams in Utah and San Jose State, non of which were blowouts. The Azetecs also took a loss against San Jose State but came out at 9-3 in what was a slightly weaker schedule, but one that did include a 21-19 victory over the previously mentioned Boise State. As all the analysts have been saying this week, the key area to watch is SDSU's run game against BYU's run defence, but I would also keep and eye on how Cougar WR Cody Hoffman performs against a very average pass defence.

Players to Watch
BYU: Ezekiel Ansah, LB/DE #47. If you haven't heard about him yet, you will do quite a bit in the run up to the NFL draft so this is a good chance to watch him perform in college before he goes pro. At 6'6" and 250 lbs he is one of those height/weight/speed guys who's not only steadily improving his pass rush skills, but is also good at stuffing the run, which will be important come Thursday night. And just before you get all the spiel from the analysts on Thursday, he's from Ghana and wanted to play basketball and ran the 100m in 10.91 blah blah blah....

Sand Diego State: Adam Muema, RB # 4. You know you need to keep an eye on a player when he has 211 carries and averages 6.4 yards per touch. With his backup now being out for the season, Muema will need to have a even bigger game than usual.

My Pick: BYU
Confidence: 6

Friday, December 21st

Central Florida vs Ball State
Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl St. Petersburg @ 00:30 on ESPN

Despite the fact that neither team really reached a national audience during the regular season, it's hard to fault their bodies of work. Ball State may have the slightly more prolific offence, but that should match up nicely against a Knights team that has been very effective in the turnover department with 26 takeaways during the season.

Players to Watch
UCF: Blake Bortles, QB #5. A very efficient passer who is very safe with the ball and has shown a knack for finding the endzone with his feet when it counts as he has 7 rushing scores on the year.

Ball State: Jahwan Edwards, RB #32. After an up and down start to the year, Edwards came on strong in the last six games, only narrowly missing have 100 yards in each by 'only' having 98 against Miami of Ohio.

My Pick: Ball State
Confidence: 2

Saturday, December 22nd

East Carolina vs Louisiana - Lafayette 
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl @ 17:00 on ESPN

If you ask me, this is the type of game that makes bowl season so much fun to watch, it may look like two average 8-4 teams squaring off in one of the fringe bowls, but if you delve a little deeper, it has a couple of intriguing sub-plots (thanks ESPN). The Pirates haven't won a bowl game in their past three attempts whilst the Ragin' Cajuns, who ran the Gators so close this year, are only in their second ever bowl game after defeating San Diego State in their first one last year. Okay, those sub-plots are not THAT compelling, but usually these smaller bowls turn out to be the most exciting ones to watch.

Players to Watch
ECU: Justin Hardy, WR #2. Shane Carden's favourite target and Biletnikoff watch list member Hardy is easily ECU's biggest threat out wide, accounting for 43% of Carden's completions this year.

Louisiana - Lafayette: Terrance Broadway, QB #8. The Baton Rouge native is a dual-threat QB that has accounted for 26 scores for his team and does a good job at sharing the ball around the offence. ECU are ranked 105th against the pass, so look for Broadway to have some big numbers through the air.

My Pick: Louisiana - Lafayette
Confidence: 5

Washington vs #19 Boise State
MAACO Bowl Las Vegas @ 20:30 on ESPN

The highest profile matchup of the week takes place in Vegas and will give us a look at two teams that have had 'down' years by their standards, but are still very good and will be looking to carry some momentum into 2013. The Huskies have had a very up and down year, having knocked off two ranked teams in Oregon State and Stanford before suffering a season finale defeat to lowly Washington State in OT. Boise State haven't lost three games in a season since 2007 and will want to retain their top 25 position going into next season with a win over the Huskies.

Players to Watch
Washington: Bishop Sankey, RB #25. Against a team that ranks fourth in the nation against the pass, Sankey's job on offence is going to be to have a big enough impact to bring the Boise defenders into the box so as to help QB Keith Price out in the passing game.

Boise State: Demarcus Lawrence, DL #8. This sophomore has been very disruptive up front for the Broncos, having 8.5 sacks, 13.5 tackles for loss, 4 forced fumbles and even a touchdown on a fumble return. If Boise are needing a big play on defence, look for this man to deliver.

My Pick: Boise State
Confidence: 18

Double Coverage teams up with School of the Legends

Double Coverage is pleased to announce its new partnership with online training source School of the Legends.

SOTL is an online based resource for players of all levels and age ranges to go online and get streamed online content to help them improve their basic football fundamentals.

Whether you are a high school player or an NFL superstar the basic football fundamentals are the same throughout, with many NFL teams running drills that would be familiar to ones you might see at your team’s practices.

SOTL offers online classes broken down by position; each clinic is presented by an NFL player. It is broken down into anywhere between 5-8 classes that teach different aspects of that position.

For example Tony Gonzalez teaches the intricacies of the tight end position, breaking down the classes into stance, run blocking, pass blocking etc.

Maurice Jones-Drew takes you through RB basics with Stance, footwork, pass protection and open field moves.

Defensively Darren Sharper helps safeties improve their pass defence, run defence, and blitz packages.

Over the coming weeks SOTL will be giving Double Coverage readers some pro-tips each week from a specific position. This will give our readers a snap shot of the classes on offer.

Have a look at what's on offer from their promo video on YouTube:

We have also secure a special discount of 10% off any class using a special redeemable code:

DBLCVG13

SOTL and Double Coverage will be working together in the coming months to promote SOTL’s new training scheme for more advanced players, filmed at Football University camp in Williamsburg, VA and Nashville, Tennessee. The new series sees multiple camera angles, slow motion replay and different age range players, from high school, NCAA and NFL alongside a coach. This new series is set for release in early 2013.

American Footballers as Rugby Union players

While carrying out my usual early morning Facebook perusal I came across an interesting angle on an old argument.

Who would you take from the NFL to make up a Rugby Union starting 15?

Often the Rugby vs American football debate focuses on the fact that American Footballers wear pads and rugby players don’t, but I thought it was interesting to compare the athletic ability of NFL players with players in comparable positions in a Rugby Union team.

Now obviously this debate needs some caveats attached. We presume that the Americans will be able to practice tackling with their head the other side of the ball so they don’t die and get an opportunity to work on their anaerobic energy systems so they aren't puffed out by the 15 minute mark.

Also someone is going to have to learn to kick a little (I could just play Ben Graham, the Lions punter, at Fly half. He played Aussie rules football originally), either that or we’ll take a scrum for penalties and enjoy the sight of a 350lb Nose Tackle try and kick a conversion.

NCAAF Bowl Season Week 1 Review

 Saturday, December 15^th

Gildan New Mexico Bowl: Arizona 49 – Nevada 48

Scott's late TD throws won the game for the Wildcats.

As predicted it was a shootout, with Arizona overcoming two three score deficits to seal it in dramatic fashion at the end. The teams combined for 1,234 yards and opened up bowl season in scintillating fashion.

Player of the Game: Both QBs shone, but Nevada gunslinger Cody Fajardo put in a big performance with both his arm as well as his running ability. Despite a late INT that sealed the game for the Wildcats, he deserves recognition for putting his team in the best position to win.

Players to Watch: Both Carey and Jefferson had big games with 5 TDs and 352 yards on the ground between them.

Pick: Correct – 4 confidence points won. My low confidence in this game was warranted as Nevada looked like they would steal the W. However, the Wildcats late comeback sealed a nice four points to start my bowl season.

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Utah State 41 – Toledo 15

Wonder who got to peel them after?

The score doesn’t quite reflect how the game went, as with 7 minutes left in the fourth it was still close at 13-9 in the Aggies favor. Then cometh Kerwynn Williams who scored 3 TDs in the space of 3 minutes and 16 seconds, breaking off some huge runs and really putting the game to bed.

Player of the Game: Easy, Mr. Williams gets the nod here, in total he amassed 235 yards off of 18 carries and had 3 TDs. He put in the work on the ground when the Aggies needed it and sealed the game.

Players to Watch: Fluellen flopped for me in the Toledo backfield and only had 7 carries. Keeton, despite not having a passing touchdown, had a efficient day passing and also opened the scoring for the Aggies with a fantastic 62 yard TD run on the option.

Pick: Correct – 11 confidence points won. Despite it not being close at the end, it was a fairly tight game, a decent amount of points won for a game that had the potential to go either way.

Double Coverage Bowl Mania Standings after Week 1

I don’t think some people sorted out their confidence rankings properly (I’m looking at you Jon Goddard), but I lie in fourth with 15 points won this week on two out of two picks. Congrats to sandford010 who is the leader so far with 25 points after backing Utah State, if Nevada had managed to win he would be quite far in the lead as he had another 27 points on the Wolfpack!

Remember, you can still enter the DC Bowl Mania Pick’em league, you won’t have the opportunity to allocate the points that the first two bowls offered, but that’s only 3 points, so you might as well join up and get in the game;

http://games.espn.go.com/college-bowl-mania/en/group?groupID=3378&selGrp=3378&entryID=60705

There's four more games on the Bowl slate next week, be sure to catch them all on ESPN.

4th and Against - Should The BUAFL Season Begin Later On In The Year

Here at the Double Coverage towers, we like to argue... a lot.

One argument that keeps popping up, is the debate as to whether the uni league should begin later in the year to accommodate for the bad weather. 

In the end, we decided to take the argument to a 4th and against debate. In case you haven't seen a 4th and against debate yet, two writers will argue the topic at hand, one for, one against. Each writer will provide reasoning for their argument, and we allow the readers to comment and decide among themselves as to who is correct.