The Cotton Bowl

Last night, it was MiamiO 35, MTS 21, and we're back to where we began. Fun and frustrating.

Tonight, ladies and gents, we go to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.   Sort of.   The game is the Cotton Bowl, but it will be contested in Cowboys Stadium.  The Cotton Bowl is the site of the Ticket City Bowl.  The stadium, that is, the Cotton Bowl Stadium.   I misremembered, to quote a politician, for just a sec, that Cotton Bowl Stadium was the site of the Texas Bowl, but the Texas Bowl is in Houston, and that's Reliant Stadium, and the Cotton Bowl hosts the Ticket City Bowl, and Cowboys Stadium is the site of the Cotton Bowl.  By the way, it's not in Dallas, it's in Arlington.  The Cotton Bowl.  The game, not the stadium.

Clear?

Anyhoo...tonight it's #11 LSU against #17 Texas A&M.  Interesting (to me, anyway) factoids about these teams: LSU is coached by Les Miles, and Miles is an anagram for Slime, and...the Texas A&M logo reads "ATM".  FASCINATING!!!

Football factoids:

A&M comes in with a 9-3 record.  Their 3 losses came all in a row in weeks 4/5/6, and that was three months ago.  If we're looking ATS, A&M has 6 straight covers.  
LSU arrives at this game at 11-2.  The two teams that beat them were Auburn, 24-17, and Alabama, 24-21.  ATS, LSU is 3-3 in the last six of the season.
O/U for this game is 49.

Where these teams rank in various categories  is intriguing:
Total yards- LSU #89, A&M #20
Passing     - LSU #107, A&M #18
Rushing    - LSU #32, A&M #43
Points       - LSU #54, A&M #34
Pretty compelling, if you accept raw data.  Then we add one more category:
Points Against - LSU #11,  A&M #27
In my analysis, this defensive statistic evens the scales.  Then we factor in the competition.  LSU accumulated its stats playing through a rough SEC schedule.  A&M's numbers are pretty sharp, but the Big 12, across the breadth of A&M's schedule, doesn't measure up to the SEC.

Slime Miles has been money in bowls, too.

So, at the outset, I was ready to take the points and start cheering for A&M to hand the Tigers a comeuppance (cool word, isn't it?).  No more.

LSU -2.  I think it will be close.  24-20.