2010 Independence Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. Air Force Preview and Prediction

Don't you ever wish for just 60 minutes you could go back and watch a football game without all of those pesky forward passes jerking your neck as you turn to watch them fly down field? Well then, do we have a game for you. The nation's top two running programs take the field on December 27th.

Air Force ranks 118th in passing yards per game, and second in rushing. Winners of their final three games, Air Force is not intimidated by Georgia Tech's BCS bowl game from a season ago.

Asher Clark just barely topped 1,000 rushing yards this season, and behind him in the rushing statistics is Tim Jefferson, a very underrated quarterback and master at running the triple option attack.

Georgia Tech will be without their master at the helm of their triple option offense. Josh Nesbitt remains out with a broken arm.

While Tevin Washington he has improved since he took over early in November, he still doesn't have the timing down to run coach Paul Johnson's intricate option attack.

Georgia Tech lacked a productive receiving threat this past season. While that may seem irrelevant to an offense so dominant in the run game (301 yards per game), consider this: during last season's ACC championship, Demaryius Thomas caught 46 passes and eight touchdowns. Thomas since left for the NFL.

In 2010's 6-6 regular season, Stephen Hill led the team with only 15 receptions. Part of this drop off in production is due to Nesbitt breaking his arm, but not having a productive receiver killed Tech's offense late in games this year.

Prediction

Teams usually say that the option attack is hard to stop because you can't prepare for it during practices before the game. That won't be the case here, as both teams can very easily replicate each others offenses in preparation for the game. Paul Johnson had a nice record against Air Force back when he coached at Navy. He beat them all but one season during his five seasons. I'm going slight upset and picking Georgia Tech finishing the season with a winning record.

Georgia Tech 27 - Air Force 20