Cactus Bowl
Washington -7 STRONG PLAY
Lets pretend that Sat Dec 6th, 2014 never existed. That date went into a temporal vortex and disappeared. The Oklahoma St Cowboys would be coming into this game on a 5 game losing streak where they were out scored 201 to 68 (avg 40-17). Their last win on Oct 11th was a 7 point win against the mighty Kansas Jayhawks (3-9) in which the Cowboys needed a 99 yrd kickoff return to break a 4th Qtr 20-20 tie.
Oklahoma St would be 5-6. Their 5 wins, all against teams that had no more than 4 wins on the year. Those 5 teams that were beaten by Ok St, finished with a combined 17-43 record.
The Cowboys are here, in this Bowl game, because the collective mind of Oklahoma had a stroke somewhere around QTR #4 on their last game of the season. This time, the Cowboys used a 92 yard punt return to tie the game late in the 4th against the 21 point favored Oklahoma. The Sooners were stunned and could not recover, losing in overtime. They literally look like they had a stroke. That mind set carried over to their Bowl game where they were beat senseless by Clemson.
Make no mistake. Oklahoma st is a BAD team. Don't try to over think it.
The Washington Huskies went 8-5. All 5 of their losses were against Top 20 teams, losing by an average of only 12 points. The Huskies fought in every game. In their other 8 games against not top 20 teams, the Huskies went 8-0, winning by an average of 19.5 points. Only 1 team stayed within a touchdown of the Huskies and that was Hawaii in week 1 in the Rainbow state.
This game should be a beat-down. The ONLY wild card here is if Washington takes this game too lightly. However, they played hard and never lied down for 13 games this year. They even played Oregon tough. I do not see them playing anything but hard nosed football today, in which case this will be a comfortable double digit win