Gary Segars:
No, I think you are certainly right about that. All right, let’s go ahead and remind everybody. Again, this show is every Tuesday and Wednesday, 1:00 PM Eastern time, but let’s go ahead and hit our NCAAF betting lines record thus far on the season. Parker went one and one last year and missed on the under with Army Navy, but he did get Army as an outright winner, so that is certainly a step in the right direction. So far on the year I am sitting at 48 wins, 35 losses, and 3 pushes. Kyle is 29, 27, and 0. And Parker is 40, 44 and 1. So that gives us a total record on the show of 117, 106, and 4. That is 52.47% against the number. Now I do want to go ahead and address a couple of things. We had a couple of guys jump in the comments yesterday on the YouTube show and talk about whoop-de-doo, 52.49% is not that big of a deal.
When you look at the circumstances, at what we are doing here, we are giving you our best bet on that day, the day that we are doing the show. We are not trying to give you an opening line, we’re not trying to give you a number that you can’t bet. We are only going with bet US lines. 52.49% is pretty good, considering the circumstances. So that is what we are going for here is giving you consistent winners, but it is still your job to make sure that you get the best of the number, that you go in bed over at BetUS of course, but go ahead and knock those things out. Our role here is give you what we are actually going to play and give you as much information as humanly possible. So for anybody that wants to jump in, you can always reach out to us.
You can either toss a question in the comments or of course in the chat. I see Yari B already in there, and of course Parker and Kyle are already in there as well. But you can jump in the chat, ask questions there. You can always jump into the comments as well or reach out to us on Twitter at any point. You can reach out to us and we will do our best to answer your questions there. Let me remind everybody of course, make sure that you like the video, that helps us out big time. Whatever it does with this algorithm thing that YouTube puts together, it helps get us in front of more people. We are still trying to grow the show. We want to continue to do that. So go ahead and help us out there. Hit the subscribe button, of course.
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Whenever you do it, leave a nice five-star review that helps us out there as well. Gentlemen, let’s go ahead and dive into the games. First game on the board. We are headed to the Frisco Bowl. This one is late Saturday night, 9:15 PM Eastern Time on ESPN. North Texas takes on the Boise State Broncos and the Broncos are a 10 and a half point favorite. The total sits at 58 and a half. It’s at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas. I would imagine it might be a little chilly. These two teams played six times from 1994 through 2000. The teams are three and three straight up against each other. Parker, I want to start with you on this line open Boise at eight and a half, it is now out to 10 and a half. The total was at 55 and a half, it’s now out to 58 and a half.
North Texas is 0 and 4 against the spread in bowl games, but they are six and one against the spread in the last seven matchups against teams with a winning record. Now they obviously did not cover in the CUSA championship game, but this team has looked pretty good. The issue that we’ve got here is North Texas fired Seth Littrell, their head coach. So the defensive coordinator, Phil Bennett will be the interim coach here. Austin Aune, the quarterback is going to play in the game. We’re not sure on Boise State side about George Holani the running back, he was icing his shoulder I believe third quarter on in the Mountain West conference championship game. And there’s some questions about what exactly you’re going to get out of both of these teams here. How do the numbers break it down, what do you see happening in this one?
Parker Fleming:
Yeah, the idea of Boise this year is just so weird to me ’cause it’s like with the offensive coordinator and the healthy guys that they wanted, they weren’t good. But then they switched offensive coordinators and then guys got hurt, and then their offense really clicked. It’s just very ironic, like the best laid plans of mice and Broncos if you will, always go awry. And I’m interested to see what they can do with kind of a month here, I guess two weeks, to prepare for a North Texas team who, one, definitely doesn’t have a huge direction with Seth Littrell gone. Two, is effectively playing a home game, like a little bit underwhelming. These guys aren’t staying in Frisco or anything, they’re just driving over from Denton on the bus. This is not a very sexy bowl game for them. One thing I’m really interested to see with Aune is he’s so experienced, really has that gamer mentality as a quarterback there, but Boise State’s defense has been very good against the pass.
So North Texas rushing, kind of balanced. They’re 84th in rush rate over expected. They’re 24th in EPA per pass, averaging 0.154, which is very good. They’re explosive, they’ll find guys in the interim term, Aune can extend plays and he can put the ball with relative consistency where it needs to be downfield. Boise is second in EPA per pass this season, negative 0.262 EPA per pass allowed. So that’s a really nice matchup for the Broncos overall. And with UNT’s offense being so boom or bust. They’re 33rd in EPA per play, but they’re 79th in success rate.
I think that you could see that Boise really could limit the ceiling here of North Texas’s offense quite well. On the other side of the ball, Boise’s offense has not really, really grown into what I think it could have been this season and has struggled. But UNT’s defense as we saw against UTSA the other week just really has trouble fitting multiple concepts. And even without Holani, I think Boise State still has the caliber of athlete that’s going to be significantly above UNT here. So this number got a little away from me in terms of the size of it, but I would certainly lean towards Boise State in this situation because of their passing defense and because of their athleticism relative to UNT. Not even factoring in the bowl, location, motivation, and the lack of the head coach for UNT here.
Gary Segars:
I like how you bring up Aune as being experienced. I like that descriptor there. What you’re really trying to say is he is an old man. He’s, I believe, 29 years old. Austin Aune has been around for quite some time. He was drafted into the major leagues, or I guess minor leagues, and then came back and has been… I think he might still have another year, but he’s a little long in the tooth. You bring up the passing defense for Boise. While the numbers do certainly look good, one thing that I am paying attention to with this over the past six weeks, or I guess however long… Since week 8, Boise State’s defense number 103 in passing explosiveness allowed, North Texas’s offense is number 5.
So that is certainly something to pay attention to if they can hit some of those long balls, this one could be a little more interesting than it certainly looks on paper to begin with. Kyle, let’s bring you in here. The normal overall stuff, PPA margin at Boise State, number 4 since week 8. North Texas is number 82, that North Texas defense is just bad. Boise State with green at quarterback, it has been a model of consistency, I think would be the best way to say that. How do you see this one? Boise State so far, 7, 0, and 1 against the spread after a straight-up loss in their last eight attempts. Of course, they lost the Mountain West conference championship game. Do we need to factor in motivation here? What do you see happening here?
Kyle Hunter:
Well, I think it was a good point by Parker to say that this one is kind of a close game to North Texas, but that also makes you wonder if they’re that excited about it. Some people just say, “Well, it’s close to home. So that’s an amazing thing for them.” It’s like a home field advantage. I don’t know that it’s going to be this great advantage for North Texas, here. North Texas, while they don’t necessarily have the highest of goals of anybody, they probably thought that they could’ve been a little bit better than this, this season. And you lose your coach, you have an interim coach, you have a new coach coming in here. I think Morris will probably do a good job here, I think North Texas is a pretty good spot that is kind of sneaky, under the radar. Could be a good team in the long term, so we’ll see how that goes.
But 64% of the bets on Boise in this game, I think the public will bet Boise right up until this game. That would be my guess. The Boise State Defense has been the best unit of any of the units here in this game. There are really multiple good bowl systems on taking a dominant defense, so I like to bring these up when I can. Here’s one teams allowing 5.0 yards per play or less and 3.6 yards per carrier or less, 215 and 138 against the spread in bowl games, 61% ATS. So that would be Boise State here in this one, but it’s dueling angles and obviously somebody could say, “Well, you could pick an angle on any side.” Of course you can. You got to figure out what you think the handicap should be and you don’t want to take that as the only reason that you bet a game.
But the dueling angle would be, fading the public, would be looking toward North Texas and backing the better defense would be Boise State. My lean in this game would be Boise State in the first half. I don’t want to lay a big number here with Boise. I don’t know that they run away with a game like this as much as some teams would, because I think Boise gets a little bit more conservative when they’re ahead by a decent spread. But I think North Texas has questionable motivation, so I’m not excited to bet them. And North Texas’ defense is so bad that even a decent offense is going to run right through them. I would think so I kind of like Boise State in the first half here.
Gary Segars:
I could see that. I could see that I would certainly lean Boise in this game, but no official plays on this one. A lot of questions regarding motivation, questions really… Boise wide receiver, Stefan Cobbs missed the last two games. He’s their number three receiver, as far as receiving yards goes. So there’s questions here, but I would certainly lean towards Boise State on that one. Moving along, we are headed to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That’s right, the Myrtle Beach Bowl. Marshall, a 10 point favorite over the Yukon Huskies. The total sits at 41, of course latest numbers at BetUS. This one is actually in Conway, South Carolina at Brook Stadium. This is the home of the Chanticleers. Their only meeting between these two teams was in 2015. Marshall won that one, 16 to 10.
Kyle, I do want to start with you on this. Jim Mora is 2 and 2 in bowl games as a head coach. Yukon’s First Bowl since 2015 here. They haven’t won a bowl game since the 2009 season, and I was incredibly excited about betting Yukon in a bowl game until I saw this matchup. I don’t know that I liked the defensive matchup for Yukon. They run the ball a lot. Marshall’s defense, really, really good against the run. These are two teams that have a ton of motivation. From everything that I’ve read about Marshall, they are excited about finishing this season out strong, getting a bowl win for Charles Huff and Company. This seems like you’ve got two teams that are really going to go at it. Not a lot of opt-outs here, not a lot of anything. This one’s interesting. How do you see it breaking down, Kyle?
Kyle Hunter:
Yeah, I agree with you. I think this is one of those games where it seems like both teams matter and this is one of them I’d want to watch of the bowl games coming up. Fantastic coaching job by Maura Junior. He did a great job this year, far better than I expected him to do right away. Really put this program back on the map right away. I agree with what Gary said too, that I would want to bet Yukon and then I see who they match up against and I look at the stats, and I start getting nervous. I think I would still bet Yukon if I had to bet a side here, because plus 10 with a low total, I’m always going to lean that way at least. But the Marshall running attack also is really good. Now you’ve got Rasheen Ali back, and Khalan Laborn, really a very good one-two combo for a smaller school. I think they could do some damage there against Yukon.
Marshall’s passing attack is bad. They’ve had poor quarterback play all throughout the course of the season. The question is, can Yukon stop the run? I don’t know the answer to that one. I think Yukon was really good at not giving up big plays, but there were a 118th in rushing defensive success rate allowed, so Marshall might get four or five yards of carry just consistently in this one. I think Yukon also getting points here, you start thinking about how many can Yukon score. I think they’ll pull out all the stops, see some trick plays, razzle-dazzle stuff here. Probably some home run hitters would be the way that they would score. Marshall does give up some big plays, 109th in explosiveness allowed. This is a low total for getting this many points.
I always like Marshall unders. I lean the under in this game and if I lean the under, I have to lean toward Yukon because you’re getting 10 points. You think it’s going to be a low scoring game. But I think, like Gary said, I think this isn’t the ideal matchup for Yukon. Having said that, I think Yukon is probably the team if you were going to point to one that you think would definitely be motivated. Yukon should be really highly motivated to be in this game. Marshall, they probably care as well, but Yukon, they’re fired up to be in a bowl game. Nobody expected this for them.
Gary Segars:
No, you are certainly right there. Looking at some of the numbers, Yukon runs the ball 65% of the time. They’re number 19 in PPA per rush. But one of the issues here, they’re number 111 in stuff rate allowed, Marshall’s defense is number 21 in that metric there. Parker, I want to get you in here. Looking at, again, some of these numbers. Marshall’s defense is number 1 in PPA per drive since week 8, but they’re number 101 in strength of schedule. Now, Yukon’s offense is number 85 as far as PPA per drive in that same spot. I’m curious your thoughts here because again, I think we would all have to lean at Yukon with the number, but I’m curious what your numbers say.
Parker Fleming:
I find both of y’all’s lack of faith in the Yukon Huskies disturbing, frankly. One, we’ve got a low total. Two, we’ve got a high volume. I was looking at the team totals here and man, I could probably flirt with an under 14 for Yukon and still have them covering on the team total there just because I believe this is going to be so low scoring. Looking at both of these offenses, the Yukon Huskies 75% against the spread this season plus 6.8 against the margin. The opening line there, on a weekly basis. That’s very, very impressive. Pace is the name of the game here. Gary, you mentioned the run rates, I’m going to mention the rush rates over expected. We’re looking at number 125 in Marshall and 128 in Yukon, in terms of rush rate over expected. A few plays, let’s get that clock rolling. Let’s line up and run three yards in a cloud of dust.
Marshall could entirely control this game from a defensive physicality standpoint and still not have the juice on offense to be able to get a 10 point lead here with how low scoring I’m projecting this game. A couple of things to point out that I think are very important, Yukon defense has been pretty bad on early downs. 94th in explosiveness allowed on first and second downs, but they’re 64th on 3rd downs there. They’re able to… When they’re in positive situations, when they’re in open situations on third down, they’re able to play a little bit better defense. Compared to Marshall’s a 113th 3rd and 4th down success on the season, 33.8. So, Marshall lacking much explosiveness to themselves on early downs, they’re 110th and early downs EPA, really doesn’t have that vertical game that’s going to exploit Yukon and make a thin team spread out.
They’re really not going to have much of an advantage in the 3rd and 4th down success. So I think this Yukon defense much better than their offense, 56th in EPA per play, compared to 84th in EPA per play. Absolutely has the juice to put these together or to put two sides of the ball together here. They’ve got a lot to play for. I really like how they match up. I think the pace is going to be so slow. I would surprise me to see Yukon throw 10 passes overall and I’m really, really looking for Yukon with a morale spot here and a low pace of play. I really have this as the Huskies continue to do what they do all season, which is surpass expectations and still lose.
Gary Segars:
I like it. I let’s make it official. Parker is going to ride Yukon plus the 10 here and I believe that we all certainly lean that way, I just worry about that Marshall defense. But I could see where you’re coming from, Parker. I get this, so you persuade me.
Parker Fleming:
Kyle wore the hat, I can’t lose. Kyle wore the hat, it was part of my premonition. This is the lock. I’m just kidding, there are no locks.
Gary Segars:
There’s no locks. But yeah, you’re right. I like it. All right, official play, Parker riding with Yukon plus the 10. Moving along, we are headed over to the blue turf. That’s right, the Idaho Potato Bowl, Eastern Michigan and San Jose State. San Jose State favored by four here. The total sits at 54 and a half. This one at Albertsons Stadium in Boise, Idaho. These two teams met once in 1987, Eastern Michigan won that game 30 to 27. You start looking at some of the numbers here, it’s a little surprising. San Jose State 0 and 7 against the spread to end the year. Did not cover a game over the last seven weeks of the, or I guess eight weeks of the season. Eastern Michigan is 4 and 1 against the spread in their last five. You start looking at Chris Creighton, this team went 5 and 1 in one possession games.
Creighton three and one against the spread in bowl games. Taylor Powell, the quarterback finished the last two games of the year wins over at Kent State and I not forget who the last… Central Michigan, 6 touchdowns, 0 interceptions there, so the quarterback play is certainly stepping up. San Jose State, this team, early in the year, looked really, really good. And Parker, I want to start with you here. They had a player, Camdan McWright, the running back that passed away due to a tragic accident back in mid to late October and this team just has not been the same ever since. As far as strength of schedule, you’re looking at number 126 for San Jose State. Eastern Michigan, number 131. I don’t really know what you can gather about either team based on that strength of schedule here. But Parker, looking at these two teams and what they’ve been able to do throughout this season, how do you maybe see this one breaking down? This one, by the way, on Tuesday, December 20 at 3:30 PM Eastern time on ESPN. How do you see this one breaking down?
Parker Fleming:
Yeah. So certainly want to just point out and admire San Jose state’s resilience this season. They did stumble, but they played a bad schedule. They were still three and two post that tragedy. And so I really like that, again, from a coach standpoint and for the mental health of all those players, it’s good that they felt like they were able to rally and return to some normalcy and I hope that’s true for all of them. That being said, the strength of schedule is certainly a concern here, but they are playing a Mac team and then that’s a strength of schedule concern as well. I know Eastern Michigan is pretty excited to be where they’re at and not having too bad of a season. Look at what they’ve done in the last five games, 4 and 1 against Mac teams and that one was a 1 score loss to a really good Toledo team. So I’m very impressed with their body of work down the stretch here. On the season, they’re averaging more points in San Jose State.
Their defense is significantly worse. San Jose state’s defense has been at times legit this season. 27th in raw EPA per play. Obviously, obviously we’re going to pull that back down if we opponent adjust that. But still just on the merits, what they allowed, very, very impressive there. They’re 34th against the pass, 38th against the rush. That’s what’s most interesting to me because Eastern Michigan is really rushing the ball a lot and with high efficiency. 42nd in EPA per play, averaging 0.06 EPA per play when they run the ball, and they’re rushing 2.3% more than the average team. We think about selection, we think about splits, high volume rushing with high efficiency is quite impressive and predictive as the future of success. So that Eastern Michigan run game against that San Jose state defense is sneakily one of the more interesting matchups in this bowl season just because San Jose State has been so good this season.
Looking at… They’ve allowed 122.1 rush yards per game. Eastern Michigan’s averaging 158.1 there. So something will certainly give overall between these two teams. One last thing to point out though, is that Eastern Michigan is very, very bad at allowing explosive plays. They’re 53rd… Explosive touchdowns particularly. They’re 53rd in quality possession rate at 49%, but they’re a 111th in points per quality possession, allowed 4.62/ so they’re not giving you that first down inside the 40 very often, but when they are, one, you’re scoring touchdowns, not settling for field goals. And two, they do have a little bit of a problem giving up some of those big plays.
San Jose State doesn’t generate quality possessions very well, but they are 41st in finishing those quality possessions at 4.35 points per. So that’s another side of the matchup that would make me inclined to lean towards San Diego. Excuse me, San Jose State. I hope I didn’t say San Diego State that entire time, San Jose State. And that defense is pretty stout here overall, I’m really interested in this one just from a matchup standpoint. And check me on this, but it looks like from an opt-out standout we might have a real football game, relative to some of these other matchups where we’re losing and not sure who’s going to play.
Gary Segars:
Yeah, I don’t believe that we have any opt-outs in this one. And yeah, you bring up that San Jose state defense and there’s been guys in the chat here, LFG said, “Doesn’t San Jose State have a salty D?” At times, they are certainly legit. But since week 8, while that defensive line has been considered the strength of the team, the defense is number 96 in PPA per drive since week 8. They are number 93 in PPA per rush in that time. This is… It’s a tricky one to try and figure out exactly what version of this team will actually show up here.
San Jose state number 109 in plays per game. Eastern Michigan, number 72. I don’t think we’re expecting a lot of points in this one. This one opened at 54 and a half for a total and it’s still sitting there. Kyle, I’m curious your thoughts on this. Chris Creighton is a just dynamic coach. When you look at some of his numbers, 33 and 15 against the spread as an underdog since 2016. That is 68.8% against the number. This one, I’m certainly leaning Eastern Michigan here, but I’m curious your thoughts.
Kyle Hunter:
Yeah. I talked about yesterday and some people in the chat are talking about the same thing, and Mac has been a good fade in bowl games. 42.7% against the spread for the Mac in the last 15 years. So you always want to look to go against the Mac first, in my opinion. The thing is eastern Michigan games have consistently been close. Creighton’s been a really good underdog coach. They’re not getting a lot of points here, but catching points with Creighton has been a good move. And it’s funny because we talked about San Jose State played a bad schedule, but according to Sagarin, 125th. Eastern Michigan, 128th. So they both played a terrible schedule.
And San Jose State was a net yards per play margin of plus 0.58. Eastern Michigan, negative 0.24. I think San Jose state’s better than Eastern Michigan. Now I will say San Jose state’s not been particularly good to us here on the show, when we’ve bet on San Jose State, they’ve laid some pretty big eggs and I do remember things like that. The biggest mismatch in this game is the San Jose state defensive line against the Eastern Michigan offensive line. Like Gary said, they’re not consistently always really good, but Eastern Michigan offensive line is a big weakness, especially in pass protection. Eastern Michigan, bottom 15 and explosiveness in the country. I think they’ll get behind the sticks here and I think that could be harder for them to get out of.
Also a stat that Gary likes to bring up quite a bit, Eastern Michigan is 2nd most penalty yards in the country, 77.1. That could be a problem if you can’t get big plays. Over 80% of the bets on Eastern Michigan so far, that’s kind of interesting. But I lean San Jose State, but truthfully I don’t really trust them that much to really want to lay points with them. If this was a Pick’em or something like that, then I’d take San Jose State. But I think both of these coaches are good coaches, I think this could be a game where both teams do care. So again, another game that I think would be pretty fun to watch.
Gary Segars:
Oh, most certainly. I think we’ll find out even more about these teams with this bowl game. Brent Brennan, you would’ve thought at this point he would have gotten a Power 5 job, that has not come to fruition just yet. But we shall see, he keeps putting together winning seasons like this at a place that routinely does not have them. I would imagine he will be up for another one very, very soon. Same for Chris Creighton, as well. These are two good teams. So we’ve got some leans to San Jose State, we’ve got some leans to Eastern Michigan, no official play on that one. Now let me go ahead and remind everybody first about the BetUS Football podcast that is the NFL feed and the college football feed right in one tidy little package on your podcast feed. Go ahead and make sure you are subscribed there.
If you can’t be here live or even if you just want to go back and listen to the shows again, that certainly helps us out. Leave a nice five-star written review at whatever your favorite podcast app is. Along with that, like the video. We have got a few more people watching now, so that certainly helps out. But go ahead and like that video and hit the notification bell if you are subscribed, that’s going to let you know when we go live. That’s every Tuesday and Wednesday at 1:00 PM Eastern Time. Let’s see. Oh, and if you have not watched yesterday’s show, go back and do that after, of course, we’ve finished with this one. We want you guys in, we want you jumping into the chat. If you have any questions about games, toss them into the chat. We are going to hit every bowl game this season. So if you’re asking about games well into the future, we may not hit on those, but it kind of depends on what else we have going on.
So toss some questions into the chat and let’s go on and continue on with the rest of these games. We are moving down to Florida. That’s right, the Boca Raton Bowl, and Liberty is taking on Toledo, and the rockets are a five point favorite. The total sits at 54 on this one. This one is Tuesday, December 20th at 7:30 PM Eastern time on ESPN. It’s at FAU Stadium in Boca, which is basically paradise. Some teams get to go to Fenway Park in Boston in December, and some get to go to Boca. It’s a unfair, cruel world sometimes. Toledo, 3 and 0 straight-up against Liberty from 1994 through 2007, so these teams do not play very often. Liberty is 3 and 0 straight up and against the spread in bowl games.
However, this Liberty team, 2 and 5 against the spread, down the stretch. Definitely not good. Toledo was not good either. They went 1 in 5 against the spread in their last 6. But that last one, they did cover against Ohio and it got them a Mac championship. Jason Candle is 1 in 4 against the spread in bowl games. Kyle, I’m going to start with you on this. This is a pretty difficult one to handicap because you’re trying to figure out exactly what Liberty is going to be. All three of their quarterbacks played in the finale, which was a blowout loss to New Mexico State. Josh Aldridge is the interim coach. You got Linebacker Walker, the defensive lineman Butler, the wide receiver Lofton in the portal. They haven’t decided if they’re going to play in this game yet, which it’s just next Tuesday. It’s tough to really figure out exactly what you’re going to do with this. Dequan Finn played early against Ohio and we’ll see what these teams actually look like, I guess, when they walk out on the field. How do you handicap a game like this?
Kyle Hunter:
All right, so I want to talk about Jason Candle here for a minute to start this off. You can set me on a timer if I go a little bit long here.
Gary Segars:
You’re good. You’re good, let’s go.
Kyle Hunter:
1 and 4 against the spread in the bowl games, but let’s take a look at each of those games. All right, Toledo was favored by 10 and a half against MTSU, lost outright 31 to 24. Pretty bad look. All right, they were favored by 7 against FIU, they lost outright 35, 32. They were favored by 6 against App State in 2017 and lost 34 to nothing. So they’ve been favored by a good amount in these games and they’re losing them outright, consistently. The Mac has done poorly, Jason Candle, I don’t trust him. I know they got the Mac title for me and that was nice, they definitely should have gotten the season win total over as well. This is a Toledo team that I wanted to bet against them so bad. I really wanted to bet against Toledo.
And then it shows up Liberty is who they’re playing against and I was pretty off, that’s for sure. Now, this was a spot that you want to fade Toledo, the Mac is not good. Toledo is not nearly as good as they should be with the kind of talent that they have. But guys, you want to bet Toledo after reading all that stuff about Jason Candle and what he’s done in these big games, you go ahead. I can’t do it, there’s no way I’m doing it. I want to bet Liberty, but I can’t bet Liberty either. Hugh Freeze leaves, questionable motivation here. We don’t even know who’s going to play for Liberty. It’s really hard to know what to do in this game. Three key players already hit the border, what will their focus be? I’m telling you Jason Candle can’t be trusted, Toledo can’t be trusted.
If Toledo wins by a large margin, it’s not going to surprise me. So don’t come back and say in the comments, “Toledo proved him wrong, this was amazing.” It’s just why would you trust Toledo after you know the data going into it? They’ve not been trustworthy in the past. He has all this time to prep to get ready for the game and they keep laying eggs as big favorites, so I’m not going to bet them in this game. If you look at the stats in the season, line makes sense. Toledo’s the better team here at this point, I think. But I don’t trust Toledo and frankly I’m going to take Liberty money line for a pizza bunny bet here just for some fun.
Gary Segars:
Just to have a little fun with it. Here’s the comparison that you’re looking for in this spot. If Toledo does win, I don’t think it necessarily proves anything. One, because they are favored. But let’s analogize this, let’s do this. Francis Ngannou in the UFC, if he were to get a win over, let’s toss out Connor McGregor. Is that really something to beat your chest about? He is double the size of Connor McGregor, so it’s not exactly… But I guess the more surprising thing would really be if Liberty were to win this game, but exactly how surprising would that be based on what we know about Toledo? Again, Jason Candle does it every single year. It’s just mind blowing with the talent that they get in there, some of the results that we end up seeing.
And we can blame it on the quarterback being injured, et cetera. But my gosh, it’s ridiculous. Now if we look at the numbers, now this is where we got to bring Parker in here. The defensive success rate for Toledo is number 1 in the country since week 8. They are number 5 in PPA per drive in that time. Liberty’s offense is only number 67 in PPA per drive since week 8. You look at net points per… Excuse me, net points per drive for the entire season, these two teams are pretty equal. Number 36 for Toledo. Liberty, number 44.
Parker, I’m curious… Now obviously, these models, you can’t really just toss in players and take them out and see exactly how much each one’s worth, et cetera, et cetera. I think the biggest loss really for liberty is Hugh Freeze. He is an offensive savant, he is the play caller. How big of an issue is that maybe for Liberty, because they will still have their quarterbacks. We’re just trying to figure out, one, who’s going to be around him. Two, who’s going to call plays. How do you compete against this Toledo defense here?
Parker Fleming:
If you’ll allow me to be non analytical for a minute, I actually have a thought about that specifically about Hugh Freeze and how he left. Because one, let’s be real, we just said the phrase, “Blowout loss to New Mexico state.” That’s not good. That’s not good for anyone, I don’t care who you are. And Hugh Freeze quiet quit, that’s what happened here. Hugh Freeze read the writing on the wall, we all knew it was happening after they beat Arkansas. And I think that the bigger issue than not having Hugh Freeze on the sideline is that for the last, what, four weeks Liberty has not had a head coach invested in the direction of the program, or developing guys or coordinating things, or fixing issues or even maybe…
This is speculative, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. But tapering workouts and practices to make sure that guys are optimally healthy and trained at the end of the season. There’s a lot of potential neglect here going on in the program that certainly would make me want to say, “I think Toledo is a good spot in this game.” But I almost never think Toledo is a good spot because on the merits, same thing as last year, their offense and defense are relatively okay. Their special teams is always a ride. Last season, if they could’ve just had a normal special teams unit, they would’ve had one of the better teams in the group of five, based on their offense and defense of numbers.
But this season is more of the same and I certainly don’t trust Candle. You really have to think about the talent advantage. He does have a talent advantage here, they’re 92nd overall in team talent composite going into the season and Liberty’s about 122nd. But you look at the rest of the Mac, he has obviously put together a roster that’s better than anyone. And that includes Akron’s bump from Morehead, coming over and being pretty productive in his first year of recruiting this season. Toledo barely wins games when they have a talent advantage. They really don’t have a ton of time to prepare here. Liberty might just have a screw it, let’s do something weird and make something happen. So there’s not a side here that I feel like is obviously an edge.
The aggregate numbers for Liberty look so bad because of the last couple weeks they’ve just been so bad because there’s no reason for them to have even played those games with how the program was being run down the stretch there, so it’s hard to bet on Liberty. But again, Jason Candle with a slight talent advantage doesn’t make me confident at all. And this line is only probably going more to Toledo as people bet against Liberty here, so I just don’t know if there’s a lot of value in this game.
Gary Segars:
I’m with you. The line opened at Toledo minus 1, it’s all the way out to 5 at this point. I think the reason that it has not reached over a touchdown is people are hesitant about this Toledo team. This is what Jason Candle has done over the years. They have routinely had more talent than other teams and they just lay duds. It is mind-blowing to watch. Now would it surprise us if they get this win? Absolutely not, they should. If they don’t, I think that’s a bigger indictment of the program there. But we shall see. We had some guys jump in the chat here. LFG said, “22 New Mexico State is better than their national perception.” Yes, absolutely. And I will not stand for Parker Defaming the good name of our good friend Jerry Kill.
Parker Fleming:
Look, I love the fight in Jerry Kills. I’m just saying as a measuring stick, blowout loss to New Mexico state still means something very bad.
Gary Segars:
Definitely not good. It’s definitely not good. So no official play on this one. Personally, I would lean Toledo because of the Hugh Freeze factor and what we saw Liberty do towards the end of the season because that team didn’t really look like they wanted to be there. But was that coaches, was that players? Are they more motivated now because they want to show out for the new coach? It’s like who knows. I just don’t know that there’s a ton of value on that ball game. Moving along, we’re going to move it to Wednesday and this one is the New Orleans Bowl, of course in the Superdome down in New Orleans. Western Kentucky and South Alabama, this is a fun one, a good G5 matchup. South Alabama, a 4 and a half point favorite, the total sits at 56 on this one. The only meeting between the two teams was in 2013, South Alabama won that with 31 to 24.
Western Kentucky is 14 and 6 against the spread in their last 20 games. And now that is certainly a good record for Tyson Helton. South Alabama, look, this team went 10 and 2 this year, was right there very close to winning the Sunbelt West division. Lost it by basically half a game. The tiebreaker to south, excuse me, to Troy. South Alabama 3, 1 and 1 against the spread in their last five games. They did not cover in the last game of the season. Where you start diving into the portal, et cetera, et cetera. This is where it gets a little bit tricky because this number has been all over the place. It opens South Alabama at 3 and a half, it jumped out to 8 and 8 and a half at some places. And then of course you hear that Austin Reed, the quarterback for Western Kentucky, he was in the portal, now he’s out of the portal.
He’s going to play from, everything that I have seen there. The biggest issue was there’s only been 16 passes that Western Kentucky has attempted this year that were not attempted by him. So you’re not looking at a ton of depth or at least not experience depth. The issue for Western Kentucky with all the buyback, now that Austin Reed is back in, is that they’re starting offensive linemen stats in Britain. Those two are still in the portal and they have not confirmed whether or not they are going to play in this game, so certainly something to pay attention to. Parker, I’m real curious how you break these numbers down. We’ve got South Alabama had a three-headed monster at wide receiver voicing the number three wide receiver who still had over 700 yards. He had his arm in the sling in the second half against Old Dominion. That defense that Kane Wommack has put together is still awesome. This is really a fun, fun matchup here. How do you see this one breaking down?
Parker Fleming:
I love this one. This one’s probably second only to UTSA Troy. It’s fascinating G matchups for me, especially because both of them are relatively full strength. Again, a very nice symmetry. I just love symmetry in a game here, we’re going to get best on best. Western Kentucky is 24th in offensive EPA per play. USA is 12th in defensive EPA per play allowed. USA is 40th and offensive EPA per play. Western Kentucky’s 40th in offensive EPA per play on… Or defensive EPA per play. So kind of a nice mix of we’ll get a best on best and then relatively weaker side of the ball when the Jaguars have the ball here. The matchup to watch is 100% Western Kentucky’s pass offense against this South Alabama pass defense. They’re 15th in EPA per pass and they’re 21st in EPA per rush, so they can really take away a lot of what you want to do.
And they’ve been pretty good at defending vertically, which is something Western Kentucky absolutely wants to do is spread the ball around. One thing to note is that Western Kentucky has been very good at generating quality possessions. They’re 10th in echo rate, but they’re 93rd in points per quality possession. They’re not finishing those drives very well. Whereas South Alabama’s defense is 11th holding opponents to just 3.25 points per quality possession. You think, “That’s more than a field goal.” But that’s when you get a first down inside the 40, your expected points is like 4 something, they’re giving you negative expected points when that happens. So really, really fun matchup here. The line got a little bit too big if you could have smashed it when it was 8 and maybe say, “This is going to be a little bit closer, I have this by about 4 points.” And so definitely would’ve liked to get that bigger line. With the 5 points here, I think this is definitely just a watch really good offense against a really good defense and maybe slightly lean towards the underdog.
Gary Segars:
Yeah, I could certainly see that. Another game where the strength of schedule… South Alabama, number 119. Western Kentucky, number 112. Kyle, I want to bring you in here. I look at this South Alabama defense and what they stop really well and it happens to be exactly what Western Kentucky does the best on offense. They’re, number one, Western Kentucky is in passing explosiveness on offense since week 8. Well, South Alabama’s defense is number 12. So now how much of that is based on the matchups that they’ve already had? That’s where you try and break this thing down. I’m curious which way you might be leaning in this one.
Kyle Hunter:
Yeah, the line movement here has been pretty extreme, like you said. Austin Reed probably was expected to not play for a while, now I think he will play in this one, at least it sounds like it. Western Kentucky will be without two of their starting offensive linemen in this game and a tight end, so some guys missing for them. I like the balance of the South Bama defense and while I think both teams are well coached, Wommack’s done an amazing job with South Alabama, super impressed with the job he’s done. Western Kentucky plus 10 turnover margin that’s led to some of their tighter wins there, I don’t know how predictive that is long term.
South Alabama, 75.3 penalty yards per game, 3rd most in the country. So they are shooting themselves in the foot. Like you said, both of these two teams have played a terrible schedule, very weak schedule. And it’s kind of hard to know what to think of them against good teams because they really didn’t play good teams. I do remember South Alabama almost beat UCLA, which would’ve been a great win. I think I would lean South Alabama in this game and lean the over thinking that Western Kentucky will be able to score on South Alabama’s defense at least some, because South Alabama didn’t face very many good offenses. And on the other side, the Western Kentucky defense, I don’t really trust them to stop anybody. So I think my strongest lean in this game would be the over, thinking that both teams have enough success and we’re only setting a total of 56, which is just about the average college football total.
Gary Segars:
Yeah, that does make sense South… Excuse me, Western Kentucky put up 27 on Troy’s defense earlier in the year. Yeah, I think they’d be able to put up some points here. I do like what Carter Bradley is doing on offense for South Alabama. I would have to lean South Alabama, for sure. But I think this total really dropped when Austin Reed… Everybody thought that he was not going to play. It dropped from 61 and a half at open to 56. So maybe a buyback opportunity here, especially in the Superdome where you don’t have to worry about weather and you got a fast track. Should be a fun, fun ball game.
All right, we got one more to discuss. Let’s go ahead and move over to that. While we are doing that, go ahead and like the video for us, if you’ve not done so already. That helps us out tremendously. The Armed Forces Bowl is Baylor and Air Force. And the Bears are favored by 5 and a half, a total of 49 and a half here. This one at Amon G., it’s Carter… Let’s try this again. Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. These two teams have met three times, Baylor is 3 and 0 straight-up now. Those were all from 1961 through 1977. So this is not exactly a modern rivalry for sure. Air Force 4 and 1 against the spread in bowl games, 20 and 8 against the spread in their last 28 non-conference games. Baylor, 4 and 1 against the spread in their last five bowl games. But if you remember, Dave Aranda last year won the Sugar Bowl and Matt Corral, the quarterback for Ole Miss, went out on the first drive of the game. If I’m not mistaken, might have been the second.
But it was early, how’s that? Kyle, we’re going to start with you on this one. Baylor finished the year 0 and 3, straight-up. Losses to Kansas State, TCU, and Texas there. They were 1 and 2 against the spread. Aranda fired the defense coordinator, Ron Roberts, who has now been hired at Auburn. The safety Devin Neal is now in the transfer portal. There’s obviously some questions here. You start looking at strength of schedule, et cetera. Baylor has faced the number 32 strength of schedule per ESPN, and Air Force has faced number 130, so there are certainly questions, but give me, give me some thoughts on this game here, Kyle.
Kyle Hunter:
Well, the first thing we think about when we look at bowl games is who’s going to be motivated. I don’t question whether Air Force is motivated to play in a bowl game. Air Force is always motivated. They’re ready to go in bowl games all the time. If you look at what they’ve done in recent bowl games, they’ve covered three straight bowl games, they’ve scored 31 points or more in four straight games in bowls. So do I think that they’re going to score points on a Baylor defense that’s not been very good throughout the season? Yeah, I do. It would surprise me if they don’t score a decent amount of points here. Roberts was fired, the special teams coordinator fired. Baylor hasn’t faced a triple option team in many years. I don’t think Baylor is very well prepped for a triple option. And while you’d say well they have extra time, does this game really mean that much to Baylor?
I don’t think it really proves too much for Baylor if they win a game like this. I think it’s Air Force gets it’s chance to play a big 12 team, it’s been pretty good. For me, Air Force is the more motivated team in this matchup. And Air Force, second in the nation in penalty yards. Only 30 penalty yards per game, that’s fantastic. Baylor’s pretty good at 42 as well, but I think Air Force has the ball for a really long time in this game. We always say time of possession doesn’t matter that much, but I do think they’ll play Keep Away, have the ball, run it consistently. Baylor’s offense, to me, is better in their scripted stuff early in the game. Once they go off that script later in the game, it’s not been great. I think Air Force can make some adjustments on defense and be good enough.
I think that Baylor will score as well. I would probably lean the over, but I like Air Force better than I like the over, thinking that Air Force’s offense will have success here. And like I said, I still think that motivation is the single biggest factor that you look at when you’re betting bowl games. And while we never know 100% going into it… It’d be obvious, afterwards people say, “Well hey, this was the motivated team.” Well, it’s easy to say that after the fact. We’re trying to predict motivation, which isn’t always the easiest thing.
Having said that, I think Air Force is a team you can count on that will be ready to play. Are they as good as Baylor at full strength? Probably not, as Baylor in this tough situation with having fired some coaches, probably not the ideal situation for the Baylors here. I think Aranda can get it fixed long term, but this is just one game here coming up very soon. I don’t think it’s a great situation. So I think Air Force probably has a chance to win this game outright, but I’m going to take the points here with Air Force in this one.
Gary Segars:
I definitely agree with you. That is one thing that you have to pay attention to when it comes to Baylor. Yes, you’ve got time to prepare for the option here, but would you rather use the bold practices to prepare for next season to get guys more developed, or would you rather use all of that time preparing for a triple option offense? I know which way I would go, which is why I’m siding with you, Kyle, on this. I like Air Force plus the 5 and a half here. You look at some of these numbers and even if it wasn’t based on time, et cetera, et cetera, Air Force runs the ball 89% of the time. They’re number 23 in PPA per rush.
That Baylor defense is not good at stopping the run, at number 116 in PPA per rush since week 8. They are number 122 in a rushing success rate allowed since week 8. That is certainly, certainly not good. Parker, I want to get your thoughts on this. Kyle brought up penalties per game. Well, the other side of this is that Baylor sometimes hurts themselves giving the ball away and number 82 in giveaways per game, Air Force is only number 15. This certainly seem… I’m not going to say wrong team favored because, obviously, I think Baylor is significantly more talented. But when it comes to motivation and just all the intangibles, I think that you would side with us, right?
Parker Fleming:
Yeah. This game is super annoying for Baylor and you can already see there’s been talk even from in the building about how Baylor’s mad that they have to go play in TCU Stadium, it’s an hour and a half away from their stadium, against a G5 team. They’re not very happy about this. Weather gets a little gross in December in North Texas there too, and so potential for this just be an absolute slog of a game with or without weather. I think the one thing that makes me lean towards Air Force here, and I will join both of you in taking Air Force and some points is that Baylor’s run defense is 94th in EPA per rush, they’re a 110th in rushing success rate allowed.
Let me just read to you… I won’t do all 10 games, but let’s go the last… Oh, I don’t know, let’s go to the last five games for Baylor. The rush yards allowed, 149 versus Texas Tech, 238 versus Oklahoma, 184 versus Kansas State, 115 versus TCU, 208 versus Texas. That looks like a defense that has been beaten down a little bit and is potentially dealing with some motivation issues. Obviously they fired, separated with Ron Roberts is probably the better way to say that. And this is just going to be a game where they’re just going to have to line up and, one, defend the triple option. Two, just deal with a very annoying situation. So motivation absolutely goes to Air Force here.
On the flip side, I like the young core that Baylor’s building in the skill talent. They’re kind of in this perverse position where last year everybody was kind of good, this year they had to replace all of their skill talent, but they brought back an experienced offensive line. Next year they’re going to bring back some experience on offensive line, but they’re going to have all new… They’re going to turn over a lot of the O-line here, so it’d be interesting to see how they use these bowl practices knowing that they’re going to have to do a lot more with offensive line. Aranda. At one point this season said, “Screw it, we’re playing the young guys.” And kind of rolled with that.
Shapen’s a good quarterback, he does want to throw an interception very badly. He very much wants to throw an interception. They’re 44th in EPA per pass, 35th in passing success rate, 39th in EPA per rush, 20th in rushing success rate. So both of their explosive numbers outpace their success rate, meaning they’re not going to do the three yards in a cloud of dust. If they want to try and play the schedule game, I think Air Force absolutely can beat them at that. And so Baylor will try to force and generate some big plays here just because I know that they believe, and plausibly so, that their skill talent is much more favorably matched up against Air Force’s Defense. But look at pace of play, look at number of possessions, look at motivation factor. Look at Air Force’s rushing efficiency, 21st in the nation despite being 131 in rush rate over expected. And I love Air Force with six and a half here.
Gary Segars:
Hey, it does make sense. Well, so currently it’s 5 and a half. We still like it at 5 and a half.
Parker Fleming:
Five and a half. Fine, take it at five and a half. Yep.
Gary Segars:
Yeah, I believe exactly what you two are breaking down here. The handicap on this is Air Force will try and play Keep Away. They will be able to run on that Baylor defense and you have to see whether or not Blake Shapen’s going to throw the ball to the wrong colored jersey. That’s the biggest thing to figure out on this one. So we are all united on this one, I believe we’ve only done that three times this year. We are 1 and 1 on that. But yeah, we all like Baylor… Or excuse me, air Force, plus the 5 and a half here. Now let’s go ahead and remind everybody like the video, subscribe to the channel, share the show out, tell your friends about it and let’s dive into some Q&A. This is the most fun time of the year, the most fun time of the show and I’m ready to knock these out.
Now first off, I do want to tackle a couple from yesterday that we did not see. So let’s go on and do that. Matthew Farmer asked yesterday, “What are your favorite trends to look at during bowl season?” Kyle, let you start with that one because I think that things have changed since, of course, we opened up the portal in December and now early signing days in December, and coaches are leaving earlier, and players are opting out and et cetera, et cetera. There’s a lot of things that have changed. What are some trends maybe that you look at during bowl season?
Kyle Hunter:
If you’re looking at sides, I still think the best is to bet against the public. The public’s been bad at bowl games and 40% of the spread bets are lower. 58% ATS since 2005, that’s a pretty big sample size over 300 games and you’re hitting 58% just betting against them. So that would be number one. The other is the one that I was talking about here earlier today, the better defense usually is a good way to go. If you can combine that and get the better defense and fade the public, then that’s something I certainly like to do.
Totals, I think some of the angles are a bit more noisy, you can get some wild results in bowl games. I rarely bet sides in the regular season, but I bet more sides in the postseason because I think totals can get a little bit crazy. And if you’re wanting to tease the total, the worst time to ever tease a total would be in a bowl game. We could see some 50 to 48 type matchups and we could see some 10 to seven matchups here, you don’t want to do anything like that. But those would be my two favorites.
Gary Segars:
I could certainly roll with those. Parker, how about you? Maybe not necessarily from a betting aspect, but what are you looking at, as far as trends or just things heading into bowl season, that help you decide who you’re going to back?
Parker Fleming:
I’m certainly better at the games later in the bowl season where there’s more motivation and there’s less uncertainty about the time and everything, ’cause you get a better read on who’s going to prepare, who’s not doing that. I think consistency of coordinators is pretty key as well. And I like what Kyle said about defense just because things are so volatile. I was laughing about the totals comment and looking up, the curable from last year was a total of 64 and it finished at 88 points. But I think most of those were scored in the last five minutes of a furious comeback by Coastal to take over and win there. So yeah, things just get crazy and there’s all sorts of motivation gaps.
I really would look at matchups and strength of schedule of hey, how do you run? How you pass, how do you defend the run, how do you defend the pass, and how was your schedule at those things? That’s going to give me a lot to say, “Oh, okay, huge glaring…” Especially when you’re comparing like P5 versus G5 matchups. You can be like, “Oh, this Mac team ran over the other Mac teams, that really doesn’t bode well for them going forward against the P5 team because they’re probably not going to be able to do that.” I don’t explicitly incorporate team talent differential into my weekly numbers that I put online, but that’s a good just heat check. I’m like, “Oh, this SEC team is 30th and I really like this story, but this G5 team is 88th in team talent composite, they’re going to be outmatched.” And so I think that’s important to look at as well. Yeah.
Gary Segars:
That does make sense. There is, we had somebody talking to us about two-lane and USC. I always like to look at that new year six game to figure out exactly what the G5 matchup is going to be. You look at what those teams did early when the playoff was first implemented and they started out 3, 0, and 1 against the spread with 3 outright wins. However, since then they are 1 in 3 against the number, 0 and 4 straight-up. So the G5 stuff, I’m very interested in those as well. But I do echo exactly what you two are saying as far as trends, et cetera, to look at other things. I had another question from yesterday. Scotty asked, “Who will have a better season next year, Scott Satterfield or Jeff Brohm?” I am very interested in this and I guess we could throw in the trifecta with, of course, Ryan Walters getting the Purdue job. But I’m curious, Parker, let’s start with you on this Sat or Brohm, next year who will have the better record?
Parker Fleming:
Brohm? Yeah, I don’t have the highest opinion of Scott Satterfield’s on field abilities and Cincinnati’s life is only getting more difficult, more drastically difficult. Their recruiting rankings are fine for where they’re at, but they’re going to change and have a different on field experience really, really soon. So I think that Brohm is also a really good system guy that can play with the pieces he’s dealt, and Satterfield a little bit more of, “I need the right guys to do the things that I need.”
Gary Segars:
Yeah, I think the transition to the big 12 might be kind of difficult for Cincinnati next year. Kyle, you agree on Brohm?
Kyle Hunter:
Yeah, would take Brohm in that I think he’s in a better situation and Satterfield still has a decent amount to prove. Now, if you throw in Walters, I think Walters is a great hire too and I think he’ll have success at Purdue.
Gary Segars:
Oh, most certainly. We did have a question in here. Let’s see, LFG said, “Why is Bowling green favored to win their bowl game, because they are more talented than New Mexico state?” So I’ll go ahead and toss that one out there. Yari B said, “Q&A, can you talk about the impact it has to lose a head coach versus a DC or an OC, which has bigger impact, if any?” So I’ll start this one off, it really depends on the coach. If the coach is the play caller, either on offense or defense, obviously that is massive. If you are losing your play caller on defense or on offense, whether it be the coordinator, then that can sometimes be a bigger deal then losing the head coach. It really just depends on the situation.
If you look at Washington state losing their defensive coordinator, not a huge deal. Because Jake Dickert was the defense coordinator just last year, he’s going to know exactly what he’s doing with that defense. When it comes to Jake Dickert losing his offensive coordinator and his play caller, that becomes a little more tricky. So it really depends on the situation, some head coaches are certainly worth more than others. Hugh Freeze, a good example that we just talked about. He is the offensive play caller, he is an offensive savant. For all of his faults, he is still an incredibly good football coach and he designs and schemes guys open almost better than anybody in the country, he’s phenomenal at that.
But if he was just a CEO guy… If Alabama were to lose Nick Saban before the Sugar Bowl, I don’t know how much of an effect that has. Because you’ve got Bill O’Brien calling the plays on offense, you got Pete Golding calling the plays on defense, you’re not losing a play caller in that situation. And I think you saw it during the COVID season when Saban went out for a game and they won handily with Steve Sarkisian calling plays, et cetera. It just really depends on the situation. Do either of you guys have something to toss in here? Kyle, you want to start us off?
Kyle Hunter:
I would lean toward offensive coordinator being a bigger loss if they’re the ones calling the plays. But you just said Gary, that depends because some of the head coaches call their own plays. Sometimes you have the defenses, the much better unit, and if you lose to your defensive coordinator right before a bowl game, it could really tear you apart. It’s definitely a case by case basis, but I would lean toward the OC being a bigger loss.
Gary Segars:
And that does make sense. Parker, you agree with that?
Parker Fleming:
I do. And I think… Yeah, I do. And I think that the point about the side of the ball is very pressing. I will say in terms of… Obviously a head coach matters more than offensive or defensive coordinator. And then which one of those matters more is important to understand not only the way that the team runs the play color, but also there’s a lot of unobserved stuff with off-season workouts and how practice is structured and different responsibilities that there is no specific job description for an offensive coordinator. That can mean a lot of things, and so it really is hard to say, “Oh, losing…”
Baylor losing Ron Roberts is probably not a huge deal because Dave Aranda is a very good defensive head coach, knows what he wants to do, has a very strong vision and will find someone who can execute it for what he wants to do. So it’s not like, “Oh no, Baylor’s wash because they don’t have their DC long term.” Might disrupt their current flow going into this bowl game, but it’s not a trajectory altering issue. But you can see the counterfactual of Jimbo Fisher, who’s a great offensive mind, doesn’t have an offensive coordinator and their quality is suffering because of the implementation and the week-to-week practice stuff they’re able or not able to do. So you can kind of see where coordinators matter based around how a coach wants to conduct their business.
Gary Segars:
Does make sense. So hopefully, Yari, that gives you at least a little insight into that question. LFG said, “Need your guys’ details regarding all the Mac teams and their bowl games, wondering why Bowling Green is hyped to win their bowl game.” I’ll answer that one again, because they are more talented than New Mexico State. That’s pretty much the only reason. Their defense has actually been pretty good this year. Parker, how do you feel about that one? Bowling Green, we’re going to talk about it obviously, but the Bowling Green has not been bad this year. That team was actually in the Mac Championship race for quite a while up until that last game. I think that your numbers, Parker, would kind of bear that out. That defense is actually not bad.
Parker Fleming:
The defense is much better than the offense, 59th than raw EPA per play compared to 125th. Also, bowling Green coming into the season was, I think, leading the nation in returning production, which doesn’t necessarily matter for… It matters only how it matters, but it doesn’t mean, “Hey, they’re going to beat somebody.” But it doesn’t mean, “Hey, they’re experienced and relative to a New Mexico state team that might not, that you’d kind of favor them on the margin.” So I think that the talent differential, the experience differential, and the fact that Bowling Green has one unit that’s actually decent in a game between two pretty bad teams, that’s what really sets the edge here.
Gary Segars:
Does make sense. Yari jumped back in with a question. Kyle, what about Jackson State versus NC Central? I have not paid… I’ve been watching the spread here for the Celebration Bowl, but obviously this is an FCS game, we don’t track FCS numbers, et cetera. It says, “Is the betting public on Jackson State? Dion and Company have one foot out the door already, NC Central’s been pretty good.” When it comes to a situation like this. Do you ever look at FCS when it comes to this, Kyle? When it comes to the public, et cetera? I think Dion is a little bit different beast than what we’re used to with the FCS games, right?
Kyle Hunter:
Yeah. And I don’t handicap FCS. It’d just be so much work. So I’m not much help in this, but I see that right now the bets are about 50/50 in that game.
Gary Segars:
Yeah, I think at one point Jackson State was an 18 point favorite. Now they’re down to what, 16 and a half, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah, I don’t know that… I’m not going to put anything on it because Dion has been in Colorado recruiting, et cetera. Who knows what they’re actually going to do for this game, how many of the Jackson State guys are actually going to play in this game because they’re actually transferring over to Colorado, or maybe they just want to finish out the year undefeated. Who knows what the motivation would be there, so I will stay off of that one.
Let’s see. Oh, and then of course we had the Matthew Farmer question. Let’s see, Paxton wants to know best bet for Texas Tech and Ole Miss. I am not going to lie, I have spent very little time breaking that one down. So we will end up hitting that, I believe, next week. Gil Brown, “Where do you find what the public is on?” We’ve talked about that quite a bit. Kyle, do we have a website or an easy spot to tell people where to go look for that?
Kyle Hunter:
Yeah. I’ve always used Sports Insights, so I give this every time. But I’m not going to say that every single number of those is perfectly correct and I don’t think anybody should bet solely on that, but it’s just one part of the handicap, certainly.
Gary Segars:
Definitely, definitely makes sense. Yari B, “I’m in a pool where you got to pick all the games and get points for the differential plus 10 points on…” Oh, yes. Okay, so you’re saying every bowl game matters. Yeah, so the pools… Parker, when’s the last time you did a bowl Pick’em pool?
Parker Fleming:
I need to get my little brother to send me the links so I can tweet it out. He’s my intern, I make him set that up. But I set it up and I do one where I track my numbers every year for bowl games and then one where I just pick and say vibes, do I like this, whatever. An alternative approach. And generally they end up doing about the same because that’s how my numbers are built. I don’t know much or haven’t invested much time in the strategy of a bowl Pick’em beyond here are the games that I think how they’re going to play out and here are the wind probabilities. So I don’t know if I’d be much use in that other than… All my numbers are online, you go to Twitter and see those, if those are any of use to you. I know people that have done well with those historically.
Gary Segars:
There you go. There you go. All right, let’s get out of here. Of course, if anybody has any more questions, you can always toss them into the comments. But let’s go on and give out our best bets on the day. Parker, we will start with you.
Parker Fleming:
I’m going to ride with the Yukon Huskies. I believe in them, despite the fact that neither of you do, for plus 10 points this week. And our agreement of the week, our final agreement of the season, Air Force plus five and a half verse Baylor.
Gary Segars:
I also like Air Force, as well. Kyle, what is your pick for today?
Kyle Hunter:
I’m going to take Air Force as well, and I’m going to avoid the peer pressure and not go into Yukon, even with Parker pushing us that way. But no, I’m rooting for the Huskies as well.
Gary Segars:
I love it. I absolutely love it. All right, I think that’s going to close out things for today’s show. A reminder, go ahead and like the video for us. That certainly helps us out here. Thank you all for watching and jumping into the chat, you guys are absolutely fantastic. I see Matthew, Yari… Let’s see, who else do we have? Wow, they filled it up at the end. David Montgomery, LFG, Paxton, Julius, et cetera, you guys are fantastic. Thank you for being here every single week, every single time we do the show. Y’all are awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Share the show out, tell your friends about it, all that good stuff.
With that said, let’s get out of here. Subscribe to the show, hit the notification bell. We will be back next Tuesday and Wednesday, 1:00 PM Eastern time, of course. And of course, the week after that. Right after Christmas, we’re going to be knocking these things out. We’ve got a lot more games to discuss. Hopefully you all have winning weeks. But with that said, for BetUS, where the game begins, Don’t forget to check out our sportsbook website. God bless college football, and we’ll see you all again next Tuesday.
