Alamo Bowl: Texas Longhorns vs. Iowa Hawkeyes

Written by Benton Vale

Saturday, 30 December 2006

Alamo Bowl: Texas Longhorns vs. Iowa Hawkeyes The No. 18 Texas Longhorns (9-3) will square off with the Iowa Hawkeyes (6-6) in the Alamo Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio tonight, Dec. 30 with kickoff at 4:30 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPN.

The game will be the second time the schools have faced each other on the football field. The previous meeting came in the 1984 Freedom Bowl as the Hawkeyes defeated the Longhorns, 55-17. Texas enters the Alamo Bowl having won four of its last five bowl games and has a 5-3 record in bowl contests under Mack Brown.

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Iowa will be playing in its 22nd bowl game, including its sixth straight. The streak started with Iowa defeating Texas Tech (19-16) in the 2001 Alamo Bowl. The Hawkeyes used the 2001 Alamo Bowl win as a springboard to four consecutive January bowl games; Iowa lost to USC (38-17) in the 2003 Orange Bowl, defeated Florida (37-17) in the 2004 Outback Bowl and LSU (30-25) in the 2005 Capital One Bowl and lost to Florida (31-24) in the 2006 Outback Bowl.

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What started out as a promising season for the Iowa Hawkeyes quickly went south. The Hawkeyes won their first four games of the season before a visit from Ohio State set off a run which saw Iowa lose six of its last eight, including 0-for-3 against ranked teams. The Hawkeyes relied heavily on the nation’s 27th-ranked passing attack with 237 yards per game, but quarterback Drew Tate had a somewhat disappointing season. Tate passed at a 58.7% rate for 2,349 yards and 16 touchdowns, but he also threw 12 interceptions, including three against the Buckeyes. The Hawkeyes do have a solid running game with Albert Young and Damian Sims averaging 4.3 and 5.3 yards per carry respectively.

In 2005, there were no quarterback worries for Texas. Vince Young was dominant and durable in leading the Longhorns to the national title. In 2006, the position was ably filled by Colt McCoy, who passed for 27 scores.

The Longhorns were 9-1 on Nov. 11, had beaten Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and were looking solid for a BCS bowl game. But then back-to-back upset losses to end the season (45-42 at Kansas State as 10.5-point chalk and 12-7 home to Texas A&M as 13.5-point favorites) doomed them.

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Texas, losers of six of 10 games against the spread is a -9 point favorite in the game against Iowa with the total set at 53. The UNDER cashed also cashed in six of 10 games the Longhorns played.

No one can accuse the Iowa Hawkeyes of being inconsistent but in their case, it was in failure to cash ATS only covering one game on the season with the UNDER covering in six contests the Hawkeyes played.