The 2018 Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl kicks off at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 18, as the Northern Illinois Huskies from the Mid-American Conference and the UAB Blazers of Conference USA take the field as part of \u201cBoca\u2019s biggest annual outdoor party.\u201d The game consists of two teams very similar in identity but with different paths. The Blazers are coming off a miraculous season after not having a football program for a few years. And the Huskies have had lots of success in recent memory.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an amazing story.\u00a0<\/strong>UAB is coming off a strong Conference USA championship win over Middle Tennessee,\u00a0culminating an amazing two-season comeback run after the program was shut down for a few years.\u00a0And now, it not only gets to go bowling for the\u00a0second year back from the coma, but it gets to play one of the three bowl match-ups between conference champions \u2013 the Ohio State-Washington Rose Bowl, and the Alabama-Oklahoma Orange Bowl the other two.<\/p>\n Northern Illinois ended the regular season with a thrilling comeback win to beat Buffalo for the MAC\u00a0championship,<\/strong>\u00a0but can the offense be consistently good for a full four quarters?\u00a0The Huskies have an amazing defense that brings the heat from both sides, and now they have to close out with a bang for the sake of the\u00a0program that\u2019s had so many bowl game issues, and for a MAC that always needs as much PR help that it can get.<\/p>\n In an era of free-flying offenses and lighting up the scoreboard, defense is rare. If you like defense and low-scoring, tight games, this might just be for you.\u00a0The pass rushing is great from both teams, and neither one has anything special on offense to blow up. It might not always be scintillating, but it should be close.<\/p>\n They can flat out get to the quarterback. The Northern Illinois pass rush is the best\u00a0in college\u00a0football with 50 sacks, thanks to Sutton Smith\u2019s<\/a> 15 and Josh Corcoran\u2019s<\/a>\u00a010. These two took over the\u00a0MAC title game by rolling through the normally amazing Buffalo offensive line with unrelenting pressure. The UAB offensive front is strong, but it\u2019s about to have to deal with something it hasn\u2019t seen all season long.<\/p>\n The Blazers just don\u2019t put up points in bunches.\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s an effective offense, but it doesn\u2019t roll for big numbers except against the weak and the sad. It\u2019s an inconsistent attack that averages around 400 yards per game but scores more than 30\u00a0points just three times against FBS teams. The MAC\u2019s best defense should keep this tight.<\/p>\n This UAB team lives on its defense,\u00a0finishing second in the nation in third-down stops and going through a brilliant mid-season stretch allowing seven points or fewer in five of six games. Also, like NIU, the pass rush is a dominant force, finishing fourth in the nation in sacks and fifth in tackles for loss.\u00a0The Huskies have a good line, but it gives up too many sacks.<\/p>\n UAB holds on to the ball for forever,\u00a0<\/strong>and in a game like this when\u00a0points\u00a0are going to come at a premium, time of possession will matter. NIU only controls the clock for around 28 minutes per game. Thanks to a defense that is second in the nation in third-down stops, UAB dominates the clock, owning the ball for over 33 minutes.<\/p>\n These are two stout defenses, so the game should stay within two scores and will end up being decided by seven. It will come down to one key, protecting the quarterback. Northern Illinois struggles mightily doing that. The Blazers of Birmingham do not struggle as much. They have a much more consistent offense and will own the clock.<\/p>\n UAB<\/strong>: 20 NIU<\/strong>: 14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2018 Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl kicks off at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 18, as the Northern Illinois Huskies from the Mid-American Conference and the UAB Blazers of Conference USA take the field as part of \u201cBoca\u2019s biggest annual outdoor party.\u201d The game consists of two teams very similar in identity but with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2740,"featured_media":19408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7361],"tags":[1185,1145,4200,2221,4199,1656,4027],"class_list":["post-19348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-bowl-games","tag-boca-raton-bowl","tag-bowl-games","tag-josh-corcoran","tag-northern-illinois-huskies","tag-sutton-smith","tag-uab-blazers","tag-uab-football"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2740"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why The Huskies Will Win:<\/h3>\n
Why The Blazers Will Win:<\/h3>\n
Prediction: <\/strong><\/h3>\n