Point Blank – December 14
Bowling for Dollar$ – Part I (Games of December 19-22)
The deepest bowl wagering menu ever brings some tremendous matchups at the upper end, the usual frustrations of having a pair of Play-On teams going head-to-head (why couldn’t they have given us Oregon and TCU each vs. someone else), and also some complete absurdities, like giving several teams the opportunity to end their season at 5-8. But it does mean opportunity, with the oddsmakers forced to make some tough decisions, and the betting markets also creating a lot of volatility, with games that would barely cause a stir mixed in the middle of a Saturday afternoon board in October now generating major handle as stand-alone affairs.
The focus here will be to break the games down into sets, each of the next three Mondays focusing on some of the key issues impacting the games for the week ahead, and then the follow-up thread will provide the opportunity to both dig more deeply into some of the keys, and also include breaking information as it happens.
There is a lot of work to do, so let’s get to it -
Item: Motivation Matters, perhaps more now than ever
Sub-Item: Can Arizona, San Jose State and Utah State stay awake in the film room
It is no secret that in the early bowl games motivation is often the most important factor of all, and that is even more pronounced this year, with so many undeserving teams having to extend their seasons. This is important to understand – when there were far fewer bowls there really was a “reward” aspect to playing again. At 8-4, or even 7-5, a team can feel good about themselves, and genuinely want to keep playing.
At 6-6, and now 5-7, there is a different aspect in play. For many of these teams the campaign has already been a disappointment, and if you have been battered and bruised sometimes there might be a preference to simply call it a season. How much does a player from a 5-7 team want to go back out on the practice field for a couple of more weeks, especially since many of those practice fields are on chilly December days, even if a bowl victory still means a losing season? That means that it can come down to the actual bowl invitation, and whether or not the venue, or the opponent, creates some spark. This opening week brings some conundrums on that front -
ARIZONA: The Wildcats could only manage a 3-6 Pac 12 campaign, after opening 3-0 vs. a soft non-conference schedule, and in going 1-4 down the stretch the only win came in overtime. Is there anything about making a relatively short trip to Albuquerque to face New Mexico that lights a fire?
SAN JOSE STATE: The Spartans are a classic example on this new front, a 5-7 team that had a lousy season now being forced to keep playing. Why are they here? Because once the bowls have to start dropping down to 5-7, the NCAA has dictated that the teams with the best Academic Progress Rates be taken in order. Even there San Jose State was only #4, but Missouri declined an invitation, so the Spartans have to put their shoulder pads back on. Do they want to? They will say the right things publicly, but put yourselves in their shoes, and think about how much spring would be in your step.
It is not just that having to travel across the country to face Georgia State creates no special motivation, but there is also that matter of having little to no fan support, something that you do want to be tracking (more on that in a moment). As for Georgia State, this is a program that should feel that the bowl trip is a reward, especially after closing the season on a 4-0 run to qualify.
UTAH STATE: This is a prime example of the particular bowl being offered not much of a reward at all. Not only do the Aggies play on the blue turf in Boise every other season in the Mountain West conference, this will be the third time in five seasons they have made this trip at bowl time. For as much as that can dull the senses, now imagine Akron being the opponent. Just what gets the State players excited about either making this trip again, or facing an opponent that is not going to set off any fireworks?
Item: The impact of the venues
OK, so you know about motivation, and how it can impact power ratings. Next come the venues themselves, and what they can mean in terms of logistics and fan support. It might have been a plus for Utah State to make the first bowl trip to Boise, maybe the second, because it is easy access for the fans (a pleasant drive along I-84 from Logan), but does the fact that Akron is the opponent also prevent the fans from getting excited? It is not out of the question that this particular bowl lowers the Aggie power rating by a point or so, compared to a different setting that might have inspired more enthusiasm.
It will be different for New Mexico. While many times a team playing a bowl game at home can come out flat, being relegated to their own dorm rooms instead of making a trip, I believe that is not the case for Bob Davie and his players. Not only is this bowl bid a genuine reward for the program, but you can expect good fan support in Albuquerque. It is not as much as a typical home game, since there will be more Arizona fans than there would be during the regular season, but it matters.
I believe playing in a bowl is a real reward for Appalachian State, which should bring plenty of fan support off of a 10-2 season, as noted by HC Scott Satterfield - “We’re very excited and our community is very excited. Our fans haven’t seen postseason football in some time, but we look for our fans to fill Cramton Bowl and our players to be prepared for a great team in Ohio University.” There was also something more from Satterfield that is subtle, but at least worth processing. He noted that the team will be staying at the Montgomery Renaissance Hotel, as they had done when playing a Sun Belt road game at Troy last year and - “That was the best hotel I’ve ever been in. When I told our guys we’re coming back here, they were so happy.” A prime reason why that can matter is that I do not expect Ohio to bring much of a following, off of another lackluster season.
One that I am not certain of yet is Western Kentucky/South Florida, an example of just how terrible and ridiculous these bowl schedules are. Put the game on Saturday night, and two programs happy to be bowling might bring good support, Miami a nice reward for Western Kentucky fans who want a little sunshine, and an easy over-and-back for USF fans. But what does television force? A Monday afternoon starting time that is not convenient for the fans of either team, or for locals in the area that might want to go to the game. Shame on the powers that be for this one, because the teams deserved better (although it can be hilarious watching the television coverage trying to frame the camera angles as though someone is actually there).
Of course, there still may be more fans at Marlin Park on Monday than in Orlando on Saturday night - you might be able to count the crowd by hand for San Jose State/Georgia State. You can read about the problems that the Spartans are having seeling their ticket allotment here.
Some of the side reading that can be worthwhile through the bowl cycle is how the ticket sales for the various teams is going, which is not just an indication of what the fan support at the game will be, but the energy level for the program during the preparation time. For one game this week, that is not an issue for either side…
Item: Bronco Mendenhall sticks around
The Las Vegas Bowl is already a sell-out, getting the opportunity to put intense rivals Brigham Young and Utah head-to-head, with both schools having brought good followings to our fair city in the past. There will be no issue of the teams being up for the game, despite the fact that there easily could have been, with BYU’s Bronco Mendenhall leaving the program immediately afterwards to take over the HC position at Virginia.
It is most rare for a team to be coached in a bowl game by someone that will be moving on – if anything it would usually be a negative, the risk being run of the players feeling like they have been scorned, and not going all out. As such I have been following the new out of Provo carefully to see if that could still happen with the Cougars, and it does not appear to be the case.
What Mendenhall has been able to do, and what has seemingly been accepted by the players, is to state that the move was best for the future of his family – Virginia will pay him more than 3X what Brigham Young can. By reducing it to economics that makes it much more palatable, especially since the same is the case for a slew of assistants also following Mendenhall east – Robert Anae (OC), Jason Beck (QB coach), Mark Atuaia (RB coach) and Garrett Tujague (OL coach) have already announced for certain, while Nick Howell (DC) and Kelly Popinga (LBs and Special teams) are also expecting to be heading to Virginia. In this case the fact that a cluster is leaving might even lessen the resentment, rather than if it was just Mendenhall.
This still might be an issue for the Cougar players if they were in a different matchup, but the chance to play Utah in what has been a bitterly contested series (nine of the last 16 meetings had a margin of three points or less at the end of regulation), should mean a proper focus.
Item: And a slow week on the NCAA Hardwoods
While the bowls begin to heat up, this week I slow down on the College Hardwoods, and you probably should as well. The schedule is extremely light and there is a reason for that – many of the schools are in their final exams period. For all of the joking that goes on about players not going to class, this is actually a crucial time, since many of those that are borderline academically have to pass their fall semester classes in order to be eligible to play the remainder of the season. It means that even for those schools that do play this week it is time to take the matchups with a grain of salt, because the home court advantage can also get a bit scrambled, with the student section not nearly as hostile on a nights when the library is a competing venue.
So it will be slow this week on that front, but there is nothing wrong with that.
In the Sights…
I believe there is a chance to take advantage of the flat setting of the Akron/Utah State matchup in Boise, with decent value in play for #214 Under.
A topic that got discussed here several times early in the season, and was utilized successfully several times in game projections, was how the Akron defense had a chance to be one of the nation’s most under-rated items. Not only were Cody Grice and Jatavis Brown returning from what was a solid 2014 unit, but some incoming transfers brought the potential to take things to a high level for a team from their conference, with Se’Von Pittman and Jamal Marcus (Ohio State), Rodney Coe (Iowa State) and Darryl Monroe (Washington State) the kind of talents rarely found wearing Zip uniforms. All four of those transfers made their way into the starting lineup and had an impact, for a team that finished #17 in the nation in Total Defense. The speed was not there on the back end to deal with the high octane passing attacks of Oklahoma and Bowling Green, but just about everyone else was held in check. Now they get to face a Utah State offense that does not bring anything special to the table.
But while the Akron defense surged the offense fizzled, bringing little ability to either control the ball overland or strike deep through the air. In their two major non-conference challenges they only scored 10 points and gained 327 yards vs. Oklahoma and Pittsburgh combined, and they can be shacked by a State defense that brings more than this Total indicates. Part of the reason for this value is that the last two Aggie scoreboards did not measure the defense properly at all – in winning 31-27 vs. Nevada they only allowed 264 yards, and in losing 51-28 to Brigham Young they only gave up 358.
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