ESPN College Football

Texas A&M revives an ancient rivalry with LSU in the AT&T Cotton Bowl on Friday night. For the second consecutive year, the game will be played in Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, rather than the stadium for which the game is named. The match moves to prime time for the first time as well as part of an attempt to become a BCS bowl in the future.

WHO TO WATCH: Texas A&M running back Cyrus Gray. He's been nothing short of outstanding over the second half of the season after his partner in the backfield, Christine Michael, broke his leg and ended his season. In the three games before the Aggies took on Kansas, Gray had a combined seven rushing yards. He finished the year with six consecutive 100-yard games. His 223-yard finale, in a win over rival Texas, brought him to 838 yards and 10 touchdowns in the Aggies' final six games. Not surprisingly they were all wins, and included two top-10 opponents in Nebraska and Oklahoma. Gray's emergence over the end of the year made the streak possible, and he'll likely need another 100-yard day for the Aggies to knock off No. 11 LSU.

WHAT TO WATCH: The line of scrimmage. This game figures to be the most physical of the Big 12's bowl games, and neither team will be able to win without winning the battle up front. Texas A&M runs it downhill better than about anyone in the Big 12, and LSU ranks a manageable 40th nationally in rush defense. The Aggies will have to deal with superstar defensive tackle Drake Nevis, and protecting Ryan Tannehill is priority No. 2 for the offensive line. He'll need time to poke holes in a solid LSU secondary with his receivers, specifically Uzoma Nwachukwu and Ryan Swope. Jeff Fuller could be in for a tough day against the physical Patrick Peterson. Defensively, the Aggies will have to slow Stevan Ridley. Rushing for 1,000 yards in the defense-heavy SEC should come with some kind of multiplier, but Ridley did it, becoming only the fourth Tiger to achieve the feat.


WHY WATCH: These are two teams competing for the "Quality Loss Championship." LSU's only losses are to BCS teams Arkansas and Auburn, while A&M's losses came to Oklahoma State, Missouri and Arkansas, all 10-game winners. What you have in this game is a pair of quality teams that couldn't quite get it done against teams that were better than them on that day, but the two could meet up for a classic.

PREDICTION: Texas A&M 20, LSU 17. I like defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter's chances against a mostly one-dimensional offense. Meanwhile, the Aggies' balance will be enough to get the win. Throwing the ball won't be easy, but when receivers do get open, if only slightly, Tannehill has proved he can get it to them. That hasn't been the case for LSU quarterbacks Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson.

LSU shoots for its fourth 11-win or better season under Les Miles when it takes on Texas A&M on Friday at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.

Here’s a quick preview of the AT&T Cotton Bowl:

WHO TO WATCH: Now that his eligibility has been restored, LSU junior running back Stevan Ridley should be raring to go. He’s been practicing with the Tigers all along and waiting to hear on his appeal. The news came earlier this week that he would be allowed to play. That’s obviously good news for the Tigers, who leaned heavily on Ridley this season. For much of the year, he was their only offense and enters this game with 1,042 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns. He’s a power runner who also has the speed to break away and get yards in chunks. The Tigers will need him to be effective on first down running the ball.

WHAT TO WATCH: LSU finished up the regular season with strong defensive numbers, but the Tigers seemed to lose a little bit of their edge in those final few games and gave up too many big plays. Can they get that edge back against Texas A&M? This will almost certainly be junior cornerback Patrick Peterson’s final game in an LSU uniform. Peterson is expected to declare for the NFL draft after winning several national awards this season. The burden will be on the Tigers’ defense similar to the way it’s been all season. They’re holding teams to an average of 17.8 points per game, which ranks ninth nationally.

WHY TO WATCH: The rumblings about LSU coach Les Miles and Michigan are heating up, even though Miles said he hasn’t been contacted by Michigan and that he doesn’t think anybody at LSU has any reason to be concerned about his possibly returning to his alma mater. It will be interesting to see how the Tigers play with all this shaking about Miles and Michigan. They ended the regular season with a disappointing loss to Arkansas. Texas A&M, meanwhile, has won six in a row. This is a renewal of a longstanding rivalry between the teams, although they last met in 1995.

PREDICTION: LSU 24, Texas A&M 20. Miles had been perfect in bowl games at LSU until last season’s loss to Penn State in the Capital One Bowl. Getting Ridley back for the bowl game was huge for the Tigers. Now, they won’t have to rely as much on their passing game, which was terribly inconsistent this season. The difference will be LSU’s team speed on defense and the Tigers’ ability to create some timely turnovers in the second half.