For the past 2 Bowl games, I decided that it would be a fun exercise to pull the NCAA rushing and passing stats as well as the individual box score data for both MSU and their bowl opponents to try to get a better feel for relative strengths and weaknesses of each team. My analysis of the Cotton Bowl National Semifinal is shown below. Please note that all rankings are the rankings based on yards per attempt for the relevant category. Enjoy! Alabama Rush Offense (#36) vs. MSU Rush Defense (#23) Alabama’s rush offense, statistically, is surprisingly average. MSU has already played and beaten 5 teams with better numbers (#2 Oregon, #9 Ohio State, #12 Air Force, #13 Maryland, and believe it or not, #35 Western Michigan). More encouragingly, MSU’s rush defense has done pretty well against these high-powered rushing attacks. Against 5 of the top 6 rushing attacks that MSU has faced, MSU’s defense is giving up less than 2.5 yds per carry. The outlier is the Air Force game where MSU gave up 27