Franklin Cittenden doesn’t care that there hasn’t been a single bowl game played yet this season, he’s ready to focus on the 2010 BCS Title game right now. He wrote a pretty good article today on the mental makeup of both of these teams. If you think the bowl game lines are tight on certain games, you need to find any edge imagineable for your bowl picks, so let’s take a look here to see if either of these teams has a certain mental advantage over the other. If you are looking for a place to get in on the bowl action, then take a look at the $120 match bonus offered by Sports Interaction!
Both of these teams have tons of talent, two Hall of Fame coaches, and both have gone undefeated through their regular seasons to earn themselves a shot at the national title. With two fairly evenly matched teams, you have to go deeper than the stats to the mental component so let’s dig in.
Texas is coming off a tough Big 12 Championship game where they almost lost to Nebraska. The Longhorns only scored 13 points on 202 total yards and caught a few lucky breaks to finish off the game. Another disappointing performance was their showing against Texas A&M when they allowed 532 yards and 39 points to a 6-6 team.
Alabama on the other hand has plenty of momentum after taking apart the Florida Gators 32-13 in the SEC Championship game. They did have a poor showing heading into that game against Auburn, giving up 21 points and 332 yards to a 7-5 team.
The media might be giving the Longhorns a motivational advantage here. The Tide have been hearing about how they are the heavy favorites, how they have more All-Americans, and how their guy, Mark Ingram, edged out Colt McCoy for the Heisman. Saban has to worry about his players buying into that hype and not playing as hard as they should, Brown knows that the media is pumping his guys up to work hard each day in practice.
Is that kind of slight going to be enough to give Texas the edge over Alabama? I guess we’ll find out.