Music City Bowl Preview: NC State vs Vanderbilt
While this season, college football will likely not produce the quality of rookie quarterbacks they have the past two seasons, with guys like Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick, there are still some pro prospects coming out of the college ranks this season. One of them is North Carolina State’s quarterback Mike Glennon and another is Vanderbilt’s Jordan Rodgers, the brother of MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers.
Rodgers does not come out of college with the same fan fare as his older brother, but any quarterback that takes Vanderbilt to two bowl games should deserve a look at the next level. Back to back bowl seasons at Vandy has never been done before, not even by Jay Cutler. The Commodores won eight games this season in the brutal SEC. They probably deserved to be playing on New Year’s Day, but because there are so many great teams in the SEC, the Commodores will play in the Music City Bowl in their hometown of Nashville. At least they should have a home field advantage for this one. Rodgers passed fro 2431 yards and 13 touchdowns and five interceptions.
Glennon on the other hand is being projected as one of the top quarterbacks in the draft. Many believe he has the tools to become a great NFL pocket quarterback and may get himself drafted ahead of Matt Barkley, Collin Klein, Geno Smith, Tyler Bray and the other quarterbacks in this draft.
Glennon was so highly though of at NC State that he was the reason Russell Wilson wound up his career at Wisconsin after three seasons as the Wolfpack quarterback. We’ve all seen how good Wilson is, so this Glennon must be pretty good. He threw for 3648 yards and 30 touchdowns with 14 interceptions. He also engineered one of the year’s biggest upsets when the Pack came back from a 16-0 hole to beat the Florida State Seminoles 17-16 on a last second, fourth down touchdown pass.
NC State and Vandy both played the Tennessee Volunteers and the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Vandy beat both of them, beating UT 41-18 and Wake 55-21. NC State lost to the Vols 35-21 and beat Wake 37-6. Vandy is 8-4 while NC State is 7-5.
BetOnline has NC State+7 -105 or +245. Vanderbilt is -7 -115 or -290. Over/under is 51.5.
We like Vanderbilt -7 in this one. They will have the crowd behind them in this one and they have been awfully tough late in the season. We also like the over as we think the two QBs will shine in their last audition for the draft.
