Meineke Car Care Bowl, December 29

Connecticut
vs
Wake Forest
Dec. 29 / 1 p.m. ESPN

For the first time in school history, Wake Forest is going to a bowl game for a second consecutive year, and head coach Jim Grobe has to get a lot of the credit. Through tough defense and great special teams his Wake Forest squad was able to get back to a bowl game after winning the ACC a year ago. Wake led the nation in non-offensive touchdowns , scoring 10 on the year. While some might see falling to the Meinke Car Care Bowl a disappointment after being in the BCS, such is not the case with Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons stated the year with losses to Boston College and Nebraska before winning their next six contests. Much of those wins came on the legs of freshman RB Josh Adams who contributed 887 yards and 10 TDs on the way to winning ACC FOY honros. The winning streak was halted with a one point loss to a surprising Virginia team before getting steamrolled by Clemson. Wake finished the year with two consecutive wins to come into the Bowl Season ready to play one of the top teams from the Big East.

Connecticut is used to winning conference championships in basketball, but the Huskies have never been viewed as a football power. That's probably beacuse they haven't been playing D1 football in Storrs for very long. UConn tied for the Big East crown with West Virginia, but because of their head-to-head loss with the Mountaineers are in Charlotte, NC, instead of playing in the Orange Bowl in Miami. This was still a great coaching job by Randy Edsall who should be even more exciting in 2008 with such a young squad doing well in 2007 and Rich Rodriguez being out of Morgantown. UConn also will count on an agressive defense to make plays and get turnovers. The Huskies were only trounced once this season, against Pat White, Steve Slaton, and company, but there aren't nearly those type of athletes on this Wake team.

UConn needs to get up early on Wake Forest to have a chance to win this game. They are a tough opponent to come back upon, but they lack the fire power to get back in this game if they fall behind by multiple scores. They must be able to run the ball with starter Andre Dixon and his fellow sophomore Donald Brown.

UConn QB Tyler Lorenzen leads the 91st rated passing team and has thrown 8 INTs that were returned for touchdowns. That plays right into Wake's strong suit. If the Demon Deacons get a few turnovers this one might get ugly. Look for Wake to be oppurtunistic on defense and really get after Lorenzen. They'll make a few plays with all-around man Kenneth Moore, who leads the team in receptions, and UConn just won't be able to come back.

Line: Wake Forest -2.0, Total 47.0