Rose Bowl 2015: Odds, Predictions and More for FSU vs. Oregon

The inaugural College Football Playoff opens with a marquee Rose Bowl battle between Florida State and Oregon, a star-studded matchup between two prolific offenses.

New Year's Day unveils college football's four-team playoff with two semifinal showdowns, the first of which involves this year's Heisman champion against the 2013 victor. That scheduling worked out well for the NCAA.

After a full year of the Seminoles escaping with narrow victories, they'll face their stiffest test against an explosive Oregon offense looking to finally seize the crown. Regardless of who advances to the championship, these two are sure to begin 2015 on a high note.

Date	Time (ET)	Location	TV	Odds*	Prediction
Thursday, Jan. 1	5 p.m.	Pasadena, CA	ESPN	ORE -9	Oregon 37, Florida State 27

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Battle of Heisman Quarterbacks

Where else to start but under center, where the last two Heisman Trophy winners take the field with the world watching.

This year alone, it's not even close to being a contest between these two quarterbacks. Marcus Mariota scored 53 touchdowns to Jameis Winston's 27. The former surrendered two interceptions all year, while the latter suffered five multi-interception games. 

Mariota rightfully ran away with this year's vote, averaging 10.17 yards per pass attempt for a juggernaut offense that scored 46.3 points per game. Winston, on the other hand, continued to pull victories out of a hat despite his production trending south.

Grantland's Matt Hinton noted Winston's 2014 decline across the board, including a pass efficiency rating that dipped from 186.5 to 144.3

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Again, it’s not just that most of the numbers are down; of course they are. It’s that all of the numbers are down, some of them significantly, and the most relevant number — pass efficiency — isn’t even in the same zip code. (By comparison, the other quarterbacks who led their teams to the playoff, Mariota, Alabama’s Blake Sims, and Ohio State’s J.T. Barrett, were three of the four most efficient passers in the major conferences, with all three posting a rating north of 160.) No other quarterback in the ACC threw more interceptions or cost his team as many points as a result. If Winston had delivered the exact same stat line as a first-year starter, rather than as a reigning Heisman winner with championship credentials, it’s not hard to imagine him being cast as a weak link.

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Most of his struggles have occurred in the second half, where the sophomore has dished up 13 of his 17 picks with 7.82 yards per pass—which is drastically lower than the closing half's 9.17 clip. ESPN's David Hale noted a particularly damning period of opening jitters before Winston churned out a strong effort against Georgia Tech.

For the Seminoles to stand a chance, Winston must lessen that gap and play like 2013's iteration. ESPN.com's Kevin Gemmell explains why the erratic passer can't afford any blunders against an opportunistic Oregon.

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Turns out that when it comes to making teams pay for their mistakes, Oregon is pretty darn efficient. The Ducks led the Pac-12 in turnover margin, grabbing 14 fumbles and 11 interceptions. Having turned the ball over just eight times (six fumbles, two interceptions) they have a robust plus-17 margin. That's third best in the country behind only Michigan State (plus-20) and TCU (plus-18). 

And what do they do with those turnovers? The answer is 120 points. Nearly 20 percent of Oregon's 602 points this season have come after a turnover. When teams turned it over against the Ducks, Oregon taxed them on the scoreboard 72 percent of the time (18 of 25).

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If the Seminoles are counting on their defense to stop Mariota, they're in for a long day. Winston will have to match Mariota point for point, and an injury on the other side helps his odds.

How Will Oregon's Secondary Fare without Ifo Ekpre-Olomu?

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Oregon will play the semifinal clash without cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, the leader of a defense that already allows 413 yards per game.

The star senior will miss the remainder of the season due to a knee injury suffered in practice last month. Fellow corner Troy Hill, who is now shouldering greater responsibility in Ekpre-Olomu's absence, explained his teammate's importance to the Orlando Sentinel's Brendan Sonnone. 

“I always took it like I'm the No. 1 and he [was] the No. 1 and I feel like I always tried to play to his standard,” Hill said. “He’s the leader, he set the standard and we all tried to play up to him, he was the one who set the tone for that role.”

With or without Ekpre-Olomu, Oregon's small secondary is facing a daunting size disadvantage against FSU's lengthy targets. ESPN CollegeFootball brought out the measuring sticks.

The biggest challenge will be containing Rashad Greene, who lamented his opponent's injury to AL.com's Natalie Pierre.

During his senior year, the dynamic wide receiver exceeded 100 yards on eight occasions—including a 123-yard, two-touchdown outing in the ACC title bout. Hill, or someone else, will now be tasked with bottling up Winston's go-to option.

Although Greene would have relished the challenge of facing a worthy adversary, he now must exploit the weakness as Oregon hopes the old "next-man-up" mantra is more than empty coachspeak. 

Florida State Can't Walk a Tightrope

The Seminoles are the tournament's only undefeated team standing at 13-0, but their path to perfection has been far from pristine. Over the past seven games, they've averaged just a seven-point margin of victory with five wins of five points or fewer.

Over that stretch, FSU has exited only one first quarter with a lead. That's pretty alarming for a school vying for the championship, but head coach Jimbo Fisher didn't soundly overly concerned when discussing his squad's sluggish starts with the Tallahassee Democrat's Safid Deen.

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Let teams develop their own identity and become who they are who they are. Some games you start fast, some we didn't. The thing is you got to play the game. It's a 60-minute game. It's like I asked somebody 'How many times has Usain Bolt been ahead at 40-, 50-meter mark in the 100 meters?' He never is. He's the fastest man that ever ran. He's never been ahead at that mark. There are always guys that start faster than him. It's how you finish and what you do.

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Sure, the formula worked against Virginia and Florida, but Florida State better not test its luck against Oregon. Give the nation's third-highest scoring offense a chance to jump ahead early, and this one will be over before the second half rolls around.

As mentioned above, Winston can't afford the early barrage of turnovers that has plagued him all year. Fisher may be comfortable operating in constant rally mode, but it won't work against a superior team that has outscored opponents by 23.8 points per game (compared to FSU's 11.8).

Four full quarters of the Seminoles' best is the only way they will survive Thursday with a zero in their loss column. Otherwise, everyone who has spent the year insisting that a win is a win will finally witness that good fortune expire.