New Orleans Bowl: Arkansas St. vs Louisiana Tech

If momentum can be carried long enough to arrive in a Bowl game, Arkansas State should have a very good chance of winning this game. As it stands I favor LT by about 3 points -- but back to that momentum thing. No team in the FBS finished the season on a bigger upswing in the passing game than ARST. Their rush offense was on a good uptick too. ARST's offensive resurgence was fueld by the return of QB Knighten from injury, absolutely. Backup QB Tabary was a pick throwing, sack taking machine. LT's rush offense ended the season heading in the opposite direction, but their passing game was also trending up -- they had the 9th highest upward trending pass offense at season's end. Still, LT had a bye in week 11 and just apparently lost interest in playing good football after that, with a listless close win against UTEP in which the Miners had a huge day on the ground, and then an absolute butt-kicking by Southern Miss in a game with the obviously huge ramification of the victor going to the conference finals to play WKU. It's hard to see LT getting up for a Bowl game against a Sun Belt team after the way their season ended.