This is the Rockets and Golden Panthers third meeting in the past three seasons. The series is tied at 1-1 with the road team winning both matchups. In 2008 FIU won 35-16 despite Toledo having 20-12 FD and 302-239 yd edges as FIU was +4 TO’s. Last year UT had a 566-372 yd edge but gave up a TD with :03 left and only won 41-31. FIU won its first ever SBC Title and this is also its first ever bowl. While the SBC Champion has usually gone to the New Orleans Bowl, the Panthers avg’d just 16,545 fans this year while a huge turnout from nearby Toledo is expected (UT campus just 60 miles from Detroit) to fill Ford Field.

FIU has 5 players with 278+ rush yds who all avg at least 4.0 ypc. That includes WR Hilton who avg 157 all-purp ypg. FIU’s #82 defense is the reason they are here as they led the SBC in both scoring and total def despite having 7 underclassmen starters in the lineup. The Golden Panthers have my #36 pass eff D led by Sr DB Gaitor and is all’g 206 ypg (54%) with an 18-12 ratio.

On the other side UT lost starting QB Dantin to a shoulder injury early vs Eastern Michigan causing him basically miss the L/4 games of the regular season. He clearly is not 100% but would like to see some action tonight because of his experience. Backup Owens took over and surprisingly, after the Rockets avg’d 318 ypg in the first 8 games under Dantin, they avg 443 ypg in the L/4 under Owens. Owens avg 237 (62%) with an 11-2 ratio in those 4. 1st Tm All-MAC WR Page posted more receptions than the next 5 Rocket receivers combined and leads the conference in all-purp yds (159 ypg). While UT’s D was #3 in the FBS in takeaways with 33 (T-#3 TO margin, +14) and they have my #61 pass eff def allowing 239 ypg (63%) with an outstanding 15-19 ratio.

Toledo, again, has a winning record for the 1st time in 5 seasons while FIU has reached 6 wins for the 1st time since they started a football program in 2002. FIU started impressively playing 4 BCS schools and were only outgained by 18 ypg. They finished the ssn winning 4 straight and had clinched the SBC Title prior to their loss to Middle Tennessee. Toledo did knock off Purdue on the road and then later finished the season winning 5 of 6 gms but they did get mauled vs Northern Illinois in what was a quazi-MAC West Title gm. While the tms are even on paper, the deciding factor is FIU being +6.8 ypg vs bowl elig tms while UT was -174 ypg vs the same. Read more…