Hawaii Bowl Preview

Arizona State (7-5) and Hawaii (10-3) give us an interesting match-up in this game. The Sun Devils have a lame duck head coach in Dirk Koetter who has already been shown the door but is being allowed to stay on for the bowl game. Sometimes that can be a bad thing but it can also be a positive if the players really liked their coach and want him to go out with a bang.

Regardless, this should be a good game as long as you don’t like defense. There will be a lot of big plays and a lot of points scored tonight.

2006 Arizona State Schedule/Results			2006 Hawaii Schedule/Results
Northern Arizona W 35-14			at Alabama L 17-25
Nevada W 52-21			UNLV W 42-13
at Colorado W 21-3			at (25) Boise St L 34-41
at (22) Cal L 21-49			Eastern Illinois W 44-9
at (14) Oregon L L13-48			Nevada W 41-24
at (3) USC L 21-28			at Fresno State W 68-37
Stanford W 38-3			at New Mexico State W 49-30
at Washington W 26-23			Idaho W 68-10
at Oregon State L 10-44			at Utah State W 63-10
Washington State W 47-14			Louisiana Tech W 61-17
UCLA L 12-24			San Jose State W 54-17
at Arizona W 28-14			Purdue W 42-35
			Oregon State L 32-35

Three Reasons to Watch the Hawaii Bowl
1. Hawaii is the No. 1 offense in the nation, averaging 47.3 points and 549.9 yards a game.

2. Hawaii's Colt Brennan is on the verge of breaking the 26-year-old NCAA single-season record for touchdown passes. He needs one TD pass to tie the mark of 54 set by Houston's David Klingler in 1990.

With 10 more passing yards, Brennan will become the third quarterback in NCAA history with 5,000 yards and 50 TDs in a season.

Brennan leads the nation in total offense (410.8), passing efficiency (182.8), touchdowns passes (53) and yards passing (4,990). He also has a 72.1 completion percentage and has rushed for 351 yards and five TDs.

3. Arizona State will try to slow down Hawaii’s high powered offense with the nation’s 27th ranked defense.

My Prediction
To this point I’ve correctly given you 5 out of 6 bowl winners. Hawaii will make it 6 out of 7 with their 35 – 27 win.