*****G-Man's Bowl Games Friday Dec16th - Sunday 18th*****

[G-Man!]

Bowls Last year 2021. 26-9. (74%)
College regular season 2022. Season. 109-71. (60%).

Friday.
Maimi, Oh +11
over UAB.
Two teams WITH 23 POINT DEFENSES.
UAB played 2 ranked opponents. Remove those games and we get a truer read on who they are.
They blew out a High School team - Alabama A&M 59-0.
Pulling out that Ala game score from the scoring totals and they are scoring 20 on offense-and allowing 24 in away games and 37-24 averages at home.

Miami is 20-23 in away games and 16-22 @home.
In both cases they play defense consistently.
Miami is also 3-3 SU in all road games. Not including 1 neutral site game with Cincinnati.
UAB is 1-5 SU in road games and also 0-6 against the spread.
This line should be more like Uab - 5 IMO.
My Play. Miami +11.



Troy ML -125
One of the best defenses of all the College teams-
Troy is Ranked 8th in points allowed and a plus 8 in
scoring - puts Troy in position to shut down a powerful offense with UTSA.
The Roadrunners are rolling with an average of 486 yds per game and are ranked # 9 overall in yardage.
UTSA has a solid passing average at 309 yds per game and a solid run offense at 177 yds per game.
If Troy had any weakness in either category they would not be able to compete against that kind of production.
But Troy also excelled in both categories and thats what should give then the win this game.
Troy is holding opponents to a 207 yd average in passing defense which is ranked #38 and holding opponents to only 117 yds in rushing yardage on average.

The Roadrunners lack defense in both ways. They allowed 404 yds per game against opponents. Barely staying in the top 100 at #90th ranked.
That should make things easier for the Troy offense in this matchup.

One common opponent that offers a comparison is ARMY.
Troy won 10-9 and UTSA won 41-38.
Stat-wise UTSA only out gained Army by 30 yds in that game.
Troy was out gained by ARMY by 87 yds.

One last defensive factor for Troy, is that they force opponents to move the ball 18.9 yds per point scored. That single stat tells how hard it is to score on Troy.

To reflect on that, the UTSA defense allowed 1 point per 15.4 yards. But in 2 of the last 4 games they've played against teams that are weak they padded that number by only allowing 7 points on defense in each of the 2 games.
Troy has surged on offense down the stretch as they have averaged 42 points per game against Arky State, ULM and Coastal Carolina and won all three SU.
My Play. Troy.

 

[G-Man!]

Saturday.
Many important developments on games.

11:00AM
Louisville ML-125 over Cincinnati.
No reason to lay points.
Louisville QB Cunningham is out. Gone to the NFL draft.
Brock Domann (866 passing yards this season) will start in his place.
But thats not a problem as Cincys starting QB Bryant was injured back on November 11th and wont be playing either today. So what it comes down to is defense.

Prater is the QB for Cincy and has played two games. He was 12 of 17 against Temple for 127 yds and Cincy won 23-3.
His last game was against Tulane and he was 10 of 26 for 102 yds. But his QB rating was disastrous at 63.7.
Facing a winning team should be big trouble today for him. Especially being a bowl game. Cincy will try to run the ball, but a one-dimension team usually doesn't win these bowl games. Cincy ran for 235 yds against Tulane but only had 19 first downs.
Forget about the coaching Carousel. This one is on the players.
My Play Cardinals.


2:35PM
Florida +10.5 over Oregon State.
Florida starting QB Richardson is out for the NFL Draft.
Today Fla wil start OSU QB transfer Miller.
But remember when another Ohio State QB was a transfer and went to another team?
His name was Joe Burrow.
No question here that the QB's who left OSU are somehow just better than everyone thought.
Wouldn't it be something if he won Straight Up?
Oregon State played their Super Bowl against Oregon in the season final and that could be a reason today to let this one slip away.
Worth a double play for me.
Play Florida



3:30PM
Fresno State -3 over Washington State.
"No college team has begun with a 1-4 record and ended up with a 10-win season, something that Fresno State will try to pull off.

Washington St. Linebacker Daiyan Henley, an All-Pac-12 first-team selection who played one season with the Cougars, has opted out of the bowl but will be with the team at the game."
Fresno State has won its past three bowl outings and played two other Pac-12 Conference teams this season. The Bulldogs lost to Oregon State and Southern Cal. So did WSU.
Washington St. is not as good as those two.
Fresno improved considerably since game 5 and WSU regressed somewhat late in the season.
If this game was played in week 4 between these two the outcome would likely be WSU would win SU. But not now.
Also - Washington State allowed a whopping 707 yards on defense to Washington in the season finale. There is no way to get my money on Washington State
My Play. Fresno

5:45PM
Southern Miss -6.5 over Rice.
Neither team has a winning record.
Playing games against Bowl level teams this year are all that matter IMO.
The Golden Eagles gained bowl eligibility by beating UL Monroe 20-10 in the regular-season finale. Frank Gore Jr. ran for a career-high 199 yards and a touchdown.
Against Bowlers. SM scored 24 and gave up 26. Rice has 19 scored and allowed 36.
Rice coughed-up the ball Thirteen(13) times in their last 4 games.

One more point: S.Miss played Troy and was buried 27-10 but SM had 4 turnovers in that loss. Troy was favored by 7.
Rice played UTSA and and was destroyed 41-7. UTSA was favored by 14 over Rice.
Yesterday Troy was favored -1.5 until the line move to Troy +2.5.

Point is that the -6.5 line is mainly based on those two games IMO and just the fact that SM allowed far less scoring by Troy puts me on S.Miss .
If you consider what the Troy defense did to UTSA yesterday (Friday Prediction) it makes sense to stick with the better loser of the two today.
My Play. S.Miss.


7:30PM
BYU +3.5 over SMU
Look for some surprising defense by BYU.
They have a new defensive Coach who vows to change a lot for this game.
BYU's defense has been costly for the Cougars during their 7-5 campaign. In a stretch of mediocre play, the unit likely cost them in losses to Arkansas, East Carolina, Liberty and Notre Dame. Those teams are all better than SMU IMO.
Sitake's defense ranked 93rd in the nation, allowing 409.7 yards per game, but new defensive coordinator/associate head coach Jay Hill vows to improve that.

SMU was also bad on defense against Bowl level teams this year. In case nobody noticed, the Mustangs have allowed a whopping 39 pts per game this year to teams with a winning record!.

SMU lost its top WR to the Draft (1,300 yds. 11 Tds).
The total on this game dropped from 71 to 64.
BYU wins & covers if they can keep SMU under 30 points in this one.
Play BYU and UNDER 64


9:15PM
Boise -10 over North Texas.
NT Fired its Head Coach after losing its last game to UTSA. A new coach will be named.
Boise holds an advantage against bowl level teams while NT was terrible being out scored by an average of 9 points per game.
The Mean Green is allowing 35 points per game vs bowl level teams so they aren't worth backing regardless of the line moving in their favor daily.

Boise was unfortunate to lose its last game to Fresno State because they out gained Fresno by 80 yds but lost 2 turnovers that decided the outcome. They should have won that game.
They will be focused for this game and should walk away with a cover and the fact that they held Bowlers this season to 23 points per game.
My Play Boise.

 

[G-Man!]

Bowl Results. Week 1. Dec 16th & 17th.

Miami +11 over UAB. ...........W
Troy ML over UTSA................W
Lousiville ML Over Cincy.......W
FLa. +10.5 over Oregon St. ......L
Fresno-3 over Washington St....W
So.Miss -6.5 over Rice..............W
BYU +3.5 over SMU...................W
BYU Under 64............................W
Boise -10 over North Texas.....L

Week 1.
7-2.

 

[indiana]

G/man.....well done this season buddy....
BOL with your Bowl Season.....indy

 

[G-Man!]

G/man.....well done this season buddy....
BOL with your Bowl Season.....indy

Thanks Indy. Same to you.

 

[RussellPeters]

Good luck and great record from last year and this year. Keep it up and stay hot.

 

[G-Man!]

Good luck and great record from last year and this year. Keep it up and stay hot.

Thanks.
Crazy year with starting players out. I think we have the right sides. We'll see.
GL

 

[HacheMan]

Best of luck G

 

[Cowboys887]

Thanks for posting! Congratulations on a great season. Any idea why Troy line moved?

 

[G-Man!]

Thanks for posting! Congratulations on a great season. Any idea why Troy line moved?

Didnt see anything today to indicate the change. Maybe a LB out for Troy.?

 

[lakrfan2000]

Nice start my friend. Wishing you continued success!

 

[RussellPeters]

Great start on the 2 SU dog winners!! Thank you man. Congrats.

 

[z71454]

Nice... thanks for posting early!!!!

 

[IMISREMEMBER]

Thanks G Man nice write ups appreciate GGGGGGGGG

 

[cashflow50]

Super duper start G! Hopefully it continues

 

[HighlifeRules]

Great star, best of luck!

 

[SilentKC]

Thank you for posting ? and congrats on a great start.

 

[einsatzgruppenfuhrer]

Let the opt-out transfer portal nightmares begin.......as Bane would say......."Let the games begin". Both starting QBs out (this hurts Louisville far more IMO). Cinncy missing an all-aac corner to transfer. Cinncy also missing 5 of 6 leading receivers/pass catchers. Louisville out a guard, 2 rb's that share snaps, and a part-tme lb.

The transfer portal makes this even worse than the opting out crap. Based on paper, Louisville looks like the play, but I've seen that Lou QB play and its a major downgrade from Cunningham. Big time. It just seems like a no-play for me. The total dropping like crazy as it should be but even that could be a trap as far down as it is.

 

[JerryK]

GL G-MAN

 

[G-Man!]

Best of luck G

Thanks. GL to you!

Thanks for posting! Congratulations on a great season. Any idea why Troy line moved?

Thank you. Much appreciated.

Nice start my friend. Wishing you continued success!

We're off to a good start. Thanks GL.

Great start on the 2 SU dog winners!! Thank you man. Congrats.

Thanks. Happy to post info to share.

Nice... thanks for posting early!!!!

Trying to keep up. Always looking for late changes. GL

Great star, best of luck!

Thanks. GL to you!

Let the opt-out transfer portal nightmares begin.......as Bane would say......."Let the games begin". Both starting QBs out (this hurts Louisville far more IMO). Cinncy missing an all-aac corner to transfer. Cinncy also missing 5 of 6 leading receivers/pass catchers. Louisville out a guard, 2 rb's that share snaps, and a part-tme lb.

The transfer portal makes this even worse than the opting out crap. Based on paper, Louisville looks like the play, but I've seen that Lou QB play and its a major downgrade from Cunningham. Big time. It just seems like a no-play for me. The total dropping like crazy as it should be but even that could be a trap as far down as it is.

Always appreciate feedback, You made some good points.
Sometimes transfers don't always have a lot of impact on average teams that are unranked.

GL G-MAN

Thanks JK. BOL to you.

NOTE:
Oregon state was the bet at -3 early, but when the line moved to 10 that was far too many IMO.
They kept it interesting in the first half, but losing an NFL grade QB was definitely a big loss.

Still I figured that the Fla defense could play solid to keep it close, but I was wrong.

Oregon.St, did a great job burning out the Fla defense and also completely shut down a decent Fla Running game that averaged 5.8 yds per rush..
Only 13 first downs for the Florida offense was the killer.

Like Ive said before, its hard to win games with one-dimension offenses and that's what happened today.
No excuses - just an explanation on why the choice was made.

Results in window#3 above