The college football bowl week schedule picks up again on Friday with the Texas Bowl on ESPN and it has the Syracuse Orange up against the Minnesota Golden Gophers in an ACC and Big Ten matchup and the game will be on ESPN and streaming from WatchESPN starting up at 6 pm and could be one of the most entertaining games of the day on the schedule.
Syracuse comes into the game a season after losing their head coach and quarterback in Doug Marrone and Ryan Nassib and now the team has made it back to being bowl eligible and they come in with a 6-6 record overall and 4-4 in the ACC and they are going up an 8-4 team in the Golden Gophers. Syracuse is coming into the matchup after a win against Boston College in the final regular season game of the year and the team comes in having lost two of the past three games and now they match up in the Texas Bowl from Reliant Stadium in Houston.
The Orange comes in with quarterback Terrel Hunt playing some solid ball and he has passed for 1450 yards and 10 touchdowns this season and the offense will try and put up some points on Minnesota, who has been solid rushing the ball this season. Philip Nelson was the starter for the Gophers and he left the game against Michigan State to end the season and they have running back David Cobb playing very well with over 1,000 yards this season.
Check here for the Texas Bowl ESPN coverage of Syracuse and Minnesota.
Cobb is the main played to focus on for Syracuse and he comes in with 1,111 yards on the season and seven scores and he was one of the best players in his conference, ranking sixth in the Big Ten in rushing. Syracuse lost all three of their games against Top 25 teams this season and the team has won three of its past five games, although they lost a terrible game to Florida State at 59-3 and that was one of the worst defeats of the season and they got to play their final two games at home.
Minnesota comes into the game after losing against Michigan State and now the Spartans are into the Rose Bowl and Minnesota comes in with a very solid defense, ranking in the top 30 in the nation in scoring defense. The team has lost two straight games and had won four games before that and the last two games against Wisconsin and MSU were against ranked teams and now the team has the chance to end the season on a high note after the team went 1-3 against Top 25 opponents this season. The Texas Bowl from Reliant Stadium starts up at 6 pm on ESPN.