College Bowl Betting – (8) MSU & (5) Baylor Tangle in Cotton Bowl

Cotton Bowl: AT&T Stadium, Arlington (Jan. 1, 12:30 p.m. Eastern)

(8) Michigan State Spartans vs. (5) Baylor Bears (-2.5, 70 o/u)

Weeks removed from the hoopla and controversy surrounding the No. 5 Baylor Bears (11-1) just missing out on the first ever College Football Playoffs, head coach Art Briles is taking a glass-half-full approach.

Briles said, “I think everything worked out for us the way it’s supposed to. And I have peace in that. We’re supposed to be where we’re supposed to be, and we’re facing a great team and a very well-coached team. It is a great challenge for us.”

That “great team” is the No. 8 Michigan State Spartans (10-2), who are coming off a 13-win season in 2013, including a victory over Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

With QB Connor Cook returning for his junior season, expectations were high for the Spartans coming into the year. They were No. 8 in the preseason AP Poll, just three spots behind Ohio State. When the Buckeyes lost starting quarterback Braxton Miller for the season, the Spartans became the team to beat in the Big Ten.

And get beat they did.

Led by freshman QB J.T. Barrett, Ohio State rolled into Lansing and put the Spartans through the ringer, racking up 49 points on the 14th overall scoring defense in the nation and almost single-handedly hitting the 58.5 over.

“People expect more,” Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio said of fans’ lofty expectations coming into the year. “That is their right. But it gives us an edge. It gives us a little bit of a chip on our shoulder as we go, and we use whatever we need to use. We have an opportunity to play against a good football team, and possibly winning that game puts us right on the fringe of being in the playoffs. So we use that to move forward.”

He added, “People keep saying that’s a major disappointment. I mean, move on.”

Leading the Bears is quarterback Bryce Petty, who threw for 3,305 yards and 26 touchdowns with only six picks on the year. Petty’s golden arm, coupled with the running of Shock Linwood (1,226 yards rushing), led Baylor to an FBS-best 581.3 yards per game.

Like Oregon out west – whom the Spartans struggled to contain in week 2 of the season – the Bears run a high-tempo offense that doesn’t allow for much in the way of defensive substitutions.

Dantonio said, “Defending Baylor really is about getting lined up and playing fast. That’s a tremendous challenge in itself, because they are probably the fastest, or what is on record as the fastest, team between snaps in the country.”

On paper, this game looks like it will feature a ton of scoring; but the total is a high 70, and the Spartans have a solid defense in theory, so don’t jump on the over too quickly.

(Photo credit: GoIowaState.com (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)