The college football schedule picks up on New Year's Day with some solid matchups and one of the top games is the LSU Tigers taking on the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium and the game will be starting up at 1 pm on ESPN and streaming on the WatchESPN website.
The Tigers come into the game without their starting quarterback Zach Mettenberger after he was injured in the last game of the season and now Anthony Jennings will be under center to try and give head coach Les Miles a win to finish the season. Mettenberger led the team with 3082 yards and 22 touchdowns before suffering a season ending knew injury and now the Tigers go into the game with Jennings, who has just 10 passes this season and he has completed six for 99 yards, but he is not without some prime experience, as he took over for Mettenberger and led the team on their go ahead touchdown drive against Arkansas in the final game of the season.
The Tigers will rely heavily on the running game with Mettenberger out and that means a steady dose of carries for leading rusher Jeremy Hill. The running back came into the season with some controversy after his bar fight video incident, but he has been one of the main reasons for the teams success, as he has rushed for nearly 1,200 yards and he had 14 touchdowns and he Hill was also key for the Tigers in their win against Auburn (which is the only blemish on the SEC champions record), rushing for 184 yards in what ended up as his beat performance of the season. Hill will be a big part of the game plan to help Jennings in his first start of the season and one saving grace for the Tigers is the highly productive duo of Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham.
Check here for the LSU and Iowa live coverage.
The two wideouts became the first pair to go over the 1,000 yards receiving mark in the same season for LSU and that could help make the Jennings transition a winning one for the Tigers. Landry led the team with 75 catches for nearly 1,200 yards and Beckham came in with 57 catches for 1,117 yards and the duo has combined for 18 touchdowns this season. Landry led the team with 10 scores and was solid with a 15 yard per catch average, while Beckham was the big play man with right touchdowns and a nearly 20 yard per catch average and they will be the main focus for the Iowa secondary and even with a new quarterback, those two players could have huge games in the Outback Bowl.
LSU comes into the matchup after winning the final game of the season despite losing Mettenberger, as the team won by four over Arkansas at home and now they face off against Iowa as they try to end the season with a win and now that game against the Razorbacks will be the final game started for the senior quarterback in his Tigers career. The Hawkeyes got off to a nice start this season with four straight wins after losing to Jordan Lynch and Northern Illinois and they rebounded well after that loss with wins over Iowa State and Minnesota and they lost three very tough games on the season after that with Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin and now all those teams are ranked in the top 20 of the nation heading into the bowl game schedule and now the Outback Bowl has two very good defensive teams going up against each other.