Matchup Comparison Rating: the fat on turkey edition

Bowl season gears up in earnest now that Christ's day is over and it's time to grab a cold adult beverage, hit the couch and watch with childlike zeal. It helps that a Big Ten team is on deck tonight in the Motor City bowl but you should be buzzing with anticipation of a week of straight football. Drink it in. As always here are our scientifically calculated MCR rankings and hopefully you are a little tighter in the pants because of all the turkey and ham you enjoyed over the holiday:





Motor City
Purdue (7-5) vs. Central Michigan (8-5)
Dec. 26, 7:30 - ESPN

You want a game where you'll get your money's worth, look no further than the pass happy spread offenses of Purdue and Central Michigan. This game could be over sometime around midnight and we could see roughly a mile's worth of passing yards. To be fair the Chippewas run more of a Rich Rodriguez style spread where the quarterback is more of a dual – threat as first-year Central Michigan coach Butch Jones believes more in the system he learned working under Rodriquez at West Virginia. Sophomore Chippewas quarterback Dan LeFevour joins Vince Young as the only quarterbacks to throw for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000. LeFevour has accounted for 40 touchdowns this season. Purdue is, well a typical Purdue: Quarterback Curtis Painter threw for an equally impressive 3300 yards with 26 touchdowns but Purdue lost their last three games after starting out 5-0. Purdue beat Central Michigan easily (45-22) earlier in the season but the teams were going in different directions at the end of the season (Central Michigan won four of their last five games and a MAC championship). In their earlier meeting, the two teams combined for 1,048 yards of offense including 724 in the air. Don't expect anything different

+1 two good spread offenses
+1 possibility of serious offensive numbers
+1 revenge factor
+1 two quarterbacks with mindboggling numbers
-1 very little chance we'll see Tiller explode on a bankrupt, sexual assaulting, gambling referee

MCR 3 (Jessica Simpson Sex Tape)

Holiday Bowl
Arizona St (10-2) vs. Texas (9-3)
Dec. 27, 8:00 – ESPN

Call it the bowl of dashed hopes, Arizona State comes in ranked 12^th but just missed out on a BCS bowl and Texas, ranked fourth in the preseason, played mostly inconsistent and ended the year on a sour note losing to Texas A&M in the regular-season finale. Texas knows San Diego very well playing three times in four years (2000-01, 2003) and while the Longhorns' offense ranks high (13^th nationally in total yards and 19^th in scoring), quarterback Colt McCoy has had a bad case of the picks throwing a conference leading 18 and he'll be facing a defense that has picked off 17. Texas will be led by All-Big 12 tailback Jamaal Charles who rushed for 1458 yards and averaged 6.3 per carry, but Sun Devils quarterback Rudy Carpenter will be facing a Texas pass defense which has allowed 275 passing yards per game. On the year Carpenter has thrown for 3015 yards and 23 Touchdowns while only throwing 8 picks.

+1 two quarterbacks with gaudy numbers
+1 two teams wanting to prove themselves
+1 chance to see Dennis Erickson riding his golf cart of doom
-1 bad quarterback/defensive matchups
-1 rerun factor (Texas playing in the same bowl for the fourth time this decade

MCR 1 (Woman's Heart)