Bowl Projections: Outback Bowl Must Feature South Carolina vs. Michigan State

Can I interest you in two top-15 teams that are actually evenly matched?

The Outback Bowl has been a blowout in two of the last three years and the bowl committee needs to score big here in order to keep this early January game relevant.

The good news is the projected matchup right now would be No. 12 South Carolina vs. No.  13 Michigan State.

The game takes the third/fourth-best team from the SEC and the Big Ten. With No. 1 LSU and No. 2 ‘Bama on a collision course to the championship game and No. 8 Arkansas likely to land in the Cotton Bowl, it’s the Gamecocks that will be the Outback representative. No. 14 Georgia would vault past them if it beats the Tigers…but I don’t think anybody anticipates that occurring.

I’m under the belief the Spartans will get their butt’s kicked by No. 15 Wisconsin in the rematch of the Hail Mary game at the Big Ten Championship game and that knocks them back to the third-best team in the conference.

This matchup would be a battle of the QBs. Michigan State’s Kirk Cousins (2,735 yards, 21 TDs) has been terrific this season but has yet to see a defense with SEC speed. Since QB Stephen Garcia was booted off the team in October, the defense has really stepped up. The Gamecocks have allowed more than 20 points a grand total of once in their last nine games.

Sophomore Connor Shaw (1,218 yards, 12 TDs) has really grown throughout the season and is coming off his best game of the year against No. 20 Clemson.

His confidence has to be sky-high against a stingy Spartans defense that is ranked sixth in the nation, allowing a mere 15.4 points a game.

With the Gamecocks looking to win a program-best 11th time despite the lose of their star QB and stud RB Marcus Lattimore (injury), this game will have some real meaning attached to it, especially for the Big Ten to prove to critics that teams up north can hang with the ultra-competitive and highly successful SEC.