{"id":12257,"date":"2011-01-07T11:17:27","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T16:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12257"},"modified":"2011-01-07T11:29:12","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T16:29:12","slug":"lsu-tigers-vs-texas-am-aggies-cotton-bowl-free-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/lsu-tigers-vs-texas-am-aggies-cotton-bowl-free-picks-predictions-12257\/","title":{"rendered":"LSU Tigers vs Texas A&M Aggies Cotton Bowl Free Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

LSU Tigers vs Texas A&M Aggies
\nFriday, 1\/7\/11, 8:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 FOX
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 LSU PK
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 LSU -2
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 49
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 49<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Tennessee<\/a>
The LSU Tigers are slightly favored over the Texas A&M Aggies in the AT&T Cotton Bowl on Friday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LSU renews its rivalry with Texas A&M when the teams meet in the 75th<\/sup> annual AT&T Cotton Bowl at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.\u00a0 The Tigers only losses came at then No. 5 Auburn and at then No. 12 \u00a0 Arkansas.\u00a0 \u201cWe are very excited about going to Dallas,\u201d said director of athletics Joe Alleva.\u00a0 \u201cOnce it looked like we were out of the running for a BCS bowl game, we turned our attention to this game.\u201d\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s game will be the first meeting between these two schools since the season-opener in 1995 when the Aggies beat the Tigers, 33-17, in College Station.\u00a0 The team is coming off a 31-23 loss to the Razorbacks, which is significant considering coach Les Miles is 15-1 following a loss while at LSU and the squad has lost back-to-back games just one time in six years under him.\u00a0 The Tigers are also a dominating 27-1 under Miles in non-conference games with the only loss coming against Penn State in last year\u2019s Capital One Bowl.\u00a0 LSU is 8-15 ATS as a favorite and 7-13 ATS when playing against a team with a winning record over the last three years.<\/p>\n

The Tigers have outscored opponents 1,068-289 in their 28 non-conference games under Miles since he took over in 2005.\u00a0 Offensively, LSU is averaging 28.8 points and 332.6 total yards per game.\u00a0 The team has rushed for 100 yards as a team in all 12 games this year.\u00a0 Running back Stevan Ridley leads the Tigers and ranks fourth in the SEC with 1,042 yards and 14 touchdowns.\u00a0 Junior quarterback Jordan Jefferson will also become the first player in program history to start three straight bowl games at quarterback since Tommy Hodson in 1986-88.\u00a0 He has compiled a 19-7 record as a starter for the squad.\u00a0 LSU is 4-2 versus Top 25 teams this season and 22-13 against ranked opponents the last six seasons.\u00a0 On the defensive side of the ball, the team is ranked in the top 10 in the nation in three defensive categories \u2013 total defense (301.6 ypg), scoring defense (17.8 ppg) and pass defense (165.8 ypg).<\/p>\n

Texas A&M will take part in its 32nd<\/sup> bowl game and compiled a 13-18 record in its previous 31 bowl encounters.\u00a0 The Aggies have faced LSU once previously in a bowl game with the Tigers handing the Aggies a 19-14 defeat at the 1944 Orange Bowl.\u00a0 The team brings in a six-game winning streak into the Cotton Bowl.\u00a0 \u201cWe have played one of the toughest schedules in the country and it is appropriate we will face a great challenge from a quality LSU program,\u201d director of athletics Bill Byrne said.\u00a0 \u201cIt should make for one of the best matchups in the bowl season.\u201d\u00a0 Some of the team\u2019s biggest stars will be inspired by playing a bowl game in the Dallas metroplex, since 13 players on the two-deep are from the area.\u00a0 Texas A&M is 6-11 ATS as an underdog.<\/p>\n

The Aggies have shown the ability to comeback in games all season long, rallying from two-touchdown deficits in three contests this season.\u00a0 Texas A&M has also rallied behind Ryan Tannehill being installed as the starting quarterback after the team benched signal caller Jerrod Johnson following a 3-3 start.\u00a0 He completed 65.1 percent of his passes for 1,409 yards with 11 touchdowns and three interceptions over the final six games.\u00a0 Running back Cyrus Gray is a dynamic playmaker and finished the season with six consecutive 100-yard games and ran for 223 yards in a 24-17 win over Texas in the regular-season finale on November 25.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Tigers are 1-4 ATS as a favorite, while the Aggies are 0-5-1 ATS versus the SEC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LSU Tigers vs Texas A&M Aggies Friday, 1\/7\/11, 8:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 FOX Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 LSU PK Current Betting Line:\u00a0 LSU -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 49 Current Total:\u00a0 49 LSU renews its rivalry with Texas A&M when the teams meet in the 75th annual AT&T Cotton Bowl at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.\u00a0 The Tigers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":3922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[1276,2804,3309,498,3711,739,1145],"class_list":["post-12257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-cotton-bowl","tag-jordan-jefferson","tag-les-miles","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-ryan-tannehill","tag-sec","tag-texas-am-aggies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12260,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12257\/revisions\/12260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}