Bowl Preview: Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
Amon G. Carter Stadium, Fort Worth, Tx.
Air Force vs. Houston
Date: Dec. 31
Time: noon
TV: ESPN
Line: Houston -4.5

About Air Force (7-5): Air Force is the same team it is every year. Really, you could just pop a tape in from 1998 and it'd be the same thing. Dudes running wishbone, give good teams trouble for a couple quarters then don't have the horses. Repeat.

Intangibles:
Fly jets: +2
Colorado Springs: +3
Not Army or Navy: -4

About Houston (10-3): Houston scores a crapload of points in the Texas Tech mold. Also in the TExas Tech mold, they take terrible losses. Like losing to UTEP 58-41. Seriously. Of course they also scored 73 points against Rice. Criminy. it's like watching a basketball team.

Intangibles:
Phi Slamma Jamma: +3
Andre Ware Heisman: -3
John Jenkins era: -4

Impact player: Houston quarterback Case Keenum will probably throw for 600 yards and eight TDs, but they could still easily lose.

Bowl slogan: "Helping support the vast military industrial complex that secretly runs the world since 2003."

Little known fact: Houston finished second in Conference USA. Which means diddly squat. Or maybe everyone knew that.

Watchability (1-5): 2

The pick: Houston 64, Air Force 42

Bowl Preview: Armed Forces Bowl

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
Amon G. Carter Stadium, Fort Worth, Tx.
Houston vs. Air Force
Date: Dec. 31
Time: Noon
TV: ESPN
Line: Houston -3.5

About Air Force: The Cadets losses came to Utah, TCU, BYU, Navy and Utah. Their wins came over much lesser opponents. They still run that pseudo-wishbone thing with all kind of motion and pitches - it's awesome! Is Fisher DeBerry still the coach? What a great name. Who is it now? Oh. It's some guy named Troy.

Intangibles:
B-52: +3
P-38: -2
Falcon thing at halftime: +3
1990 Liberty Bowl: -7

About Houston: The Cougars score 41 points a game and give up 31 points a game. WHAT? I give up. Defense is dead. Just stick 11 corpses in a pile at midfield and save the scholarship money.

Intangibles:
Phi Slamma Jamma: +4
David Klingler: -4
"Houston Oilers, Houston Oilers, Houston Oilers Number One": +5

Impact Player: Houston QB Case Keenum throws for 397 yards a game has 43 touchdowns and 10 intercaeptions. Of course, this is the pretty much the same offense that suckered the Eagles into drafting that stiff Kevin Kolb. Buyer beware.

Little Known Fact: These two teams already played once this year, which Air Force won 31-28. I guess rematches are inevitable when there are 134 bowl games.

Little Known Fact #2: Last year's Houston coach Art Briles left to go to Baylor. When your coach leaves your program to go to freaking Baylor, you might want to rethink your committment to the sport.

The Pick: Houston 42, Air Force 28