Point Blank – December 28
Bowling for Dollars$ - Part III (through D 30)…On properly understanding the SEC West…
Time put the bowling shoes back on, this time through the games of Wednesday December 30, with another edition coming up that morning to sort through the Thursday and Friday games.
So what have we learned so far? That more really is less, in terms of quality of play. By adding so many weak teams to the mix the early cycle brought a lot of bad games; prior to Saturday eight of the 12 had been decided in double figures. But Saturday saw some of the power conferences get into play, and the quality picked up, including some genuine late-game intrigue. It was nice to see Frank Beamer go out a winner, and the game flow allowed for a shifting in the rooting interests once the +14 was secure.
Now the games will get even better, and more confidence can be put into the handicapping approaches, so let’s go to work…
Item: Not quite “Home Sweet Home” for Navy
There have been prior discussions about teams being home for bowl games, noting that it tends to be a mixed bag – while there are the positives of routine when it comes to practicing at your own facilities and sleeping in your own bed, there is also the lack of the reward that a bowl trip to another venue brings. That comes front and center for Navy, but also note something else here – since classes are not in session that big Midshipmen student rooting section is not around. Few academies have more of their students come from as far away as Navy, which means so many of them away with their families during the break.
From a tactical standpoint this will be the second look at option football for Pittsburgh in the first season under Pat Narduzzi, who did not go up against much of it while he was with Michigan State. The Panthers struggled early in their first look vs. Georgia Tech before making some halftime adjustments, and you can read more about their preparation for that key tactical aspect of this matchup here.
Defending the option may be an even bigger issue for Cal come Tuesday…
Item: How well can California emulate the Air Force option in practice?
Air Force/California is one of those intriguing matchups in which neither defense is geared up up to stop what the opposition does best. The Falcons simply do not have the athletes to cover all of the receivers in a spread passing attack, which opens the door for Jared Goff, but a team that throws the ball around like Sonny Dykes' Golden Bears also does not recruit the kind of players to simulate option football in practice. Sorting through how they have tried to work around that will be a bit part of the handicapping breakdown pre-kickoff.
Note a side aspect here that does bring a little more energy for Cal to this venue that one might imagine – Dykes is from Texas, and wants to make this area a part of his recruiting territory. As such, an open practice was held on Saturday, so that local high school players and coaches in the talent-rich Dallas/Fort Worth area could attend, and see the wide-open Cal playbook in action. The question becomes how much of that practice was focused on stopping the Falcon option.
Item: Measuring Baylor’s depth
QBs Seth Russell and Jarrett Stridham are gone, as are big-time contributors like WR Corey Coleman (74 catches for 1,363 yards and 20 TDs), RB Shock Linwood (1,329 rushing yards and 10 TDs) and RT Pat Colbert. That is a lot, arguably as much missing offensive talent as any bowl team in memory. Naturally the markets have not missed this, with a Baylor -2.5 shifting over to a North Carolina -3. And that is before many in the public arenas of the marketplace have gotten involved. Might it run even further?
Here is why it gets interesting – Art Briles has recruited a lot of quality depth at the skill positions, and while the experience of Coleman and Linkwood is indeed difficult to replace, the Bears offense will bring talent. It may also bring something else – Briles can run out a playbook as deep and flexible as anyone, and that will create major headaches for Gene Chizik as he tries to build a North Carolina defensive game plan. Chizik has a full season of Baylor game films to peruse, yet there may be little correlation between what the Bears have been doing, and the way they will attack on Tuesday.
Item: About the Texas A&M QB conundrum
Another major move from the openers has been Texas A&M going from a -2.5 over Louisville to now being +4.5, with almost all of that attributed to the shifting sands of the Aggie QB rotation, with the grains of Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray slipping to the bottom of the hour glass. That leaves sophomore Jake Hubenak as the starter, and it will bring some interesting handicapping notions – for all of the pedigree that high-level recruits Allen and Murray brought to the program, neither played all that well this season. They combined to complete only 57.4 percent of their pass attempts, with 14 interceptions, and the offense never did find much consistency.
Enter Hubenak, who wanted to come to A&M after a strong high school career, where he lead Georgetown to a 19-1 record, the only loss being 48-37 to Denton Guyer in the Class 4A state title game, an opponent led by current Texas QB Jerrod Heard. The Aggies did not have room for him at the time, so he went to Oklahoma State and red-shirted for a season, before heading to Blinn Junior College, where he threw for over 4,000 yards and 47 TDs despite only playing eight games. Hubenak only threw 27 passes this season, but now he gets ample practice time working with the first team offense, and while much of the following from Kevin Sumlin is coach-speak, there may be validity to it, players rallying around a new leader after others jumped ship - “We’ve had great practices and we’ve got great energy right now, and they’ve rallied around him. I look forward to him playing, and playing well, in the bowl game.”
There will be more scrutiny of Hubenak and the Aggies between now and kickoff, which might lead to an awfully busy SEC West ticket, because several others are going to make it.
In the Sights, SEC West edition…
The SEC West is the best division in college football, which most in the marketplace would accept, albeit not necessarily for the right reasons. It is not that the teams at the top are all that much better than their counterparts from other conferences, but that those at the bottom are, the key to this grouping being the outstanding depth. It was the poor showing of Alabama, Mississippi and Mississippi State at the top in last year’s bowls that ignited the storyline of the conference being over-rated, and I believe we can take advantage of that over this next cycle. I am going to place #248 LSU, #250 Auburn and #252 Mississippi State all in pocket.
Yes, the top of the SEC West was abused in last year’s bowls. But the others were fine, Texas A&M beating West Virginia and Arkansas routing Texas, while LSU (28-31 vs. Notre Dame) and Auburn (31-34 in OT vs. Wisconsin) made good accounts of themselves in close defeats. So consider what that brings from our trio here – all three are coming off of bowl defeats that will bring an added focus this time around, and there are matchup considerations that take care of the rest. This is not just about the general concept, but also the specifics that help to make it work.
--LSU has the athletes in the secondary to not be bothered by the way that Texas Tech spreads the field, and Leonard Fournette has a chance to be running downhill for most of the game against a Red Raider defensive front that does not bring much surge at the point of attack.
--Auburn will have plenty of fan support in Birmingham (for a change), and while Gus Malzahn’s Tigers are accustomed to the schedule cycle such a game brings, it is a different story for the other Tigers, under interim HC Darrell Dickey. Even though they finally did get a bowl appearance last year, this is a different flow, as acknowledged by QB Paxton Lynch - "We never really had to go home and then come back and get ready for a game, because last year we got to go to the game and take our break like that."
--Mississippi State, like Auburn, brings the combination of being off of a bowl loss last year, and a defeat in their final regular-season game, which means the focus from programs the have a lot of pride to spit out a bad taste. For the Bulldogs there is the added motivation to send Dak Prescott out a winner, and the opposition does not bring a whole lot – as noted in putting an “In the Sights…” ticket in play against N. C. State in the Wolfpack finale vs. North Carolina, they did not account themselves well when stepping up this season – they took an 0-5 SU and ATS collar vs. bowl opponents, coming up 41.5 points short of the market projections in the process. A Bulldog defense that has had to face Prescott in practice for several seasons will not be bothered by the matchup issues that Jacoby Brissett presents, which enables more control of this game than the short price is calling for.
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