Cure Bowl – Jacksonville St vs Ohio
posted December 13
Updated December 20 below
The Game
Yes, guy.
We’ve got a pair of conference champions going head-to-head in the Cure Bowl as the Ohio Bobcats and Jacksonville St Gamecocks GET IT ON down in Orlando. Ohio (10-3) was on SUPAH HOT FIRE down the stretch winning their final five regular season games and following that up with an absolute PASTING of Miami Ohio in the MAC Championship Game (W 38-3). That was the Bobcats first MAC title since 1968! Jacksonville St (9-4) rattled off eight wins in their final nine games and put the cherry on top of their cake with a 52-12 stomping of Western Kentucky in the CUSA Championship Game.
The Details
Ohio -3 Jacksonville St (54.5)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Ohio -4
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Ohio 28.75 Jacksonville St 25.75
Ohio offense vs Jacksonville St defense
The Bobcats are humming on offense right now and they’ve scored 35+ points in five of their last six outings. Their preferred mode of transportation is on the ground (212 YPG, #12 FBS) behind the running of star RB Anthony Tyus (1,111, 9 TD) and QB Parker Navarro (936, 15 TD!). Navarro also diced up an excellent Miami Ohio defense last week and the Bobcats boast a 1,000-yard WR in Coleman Owen, so there’s no doubt that the COCKS are gonna have a challenge on their hands. Their stop unit has been mediocre this year (#87 total defense, #95 run D, #71 pass efficiency D) but they’ve done a decent job getting PENETRATION (#44 FBS TFL/game). We don’t expect Ohio to have much trouble moving the football if they play a relatively clean game.
Jacksonville St offense vs Ohio defense
Jacksonville St comes at you LONG TIME with a devastating rushing attack (267 YPG, #2) that wears down all but the toughest run defenses. The COCKS boast TWO (!) of the top-12 rushers in the entire country in the same backfield in RB Tre Stewart (1,601, 23 TD!) and QB Tyler Huff (1,343, 14 TD) and they’ll provide a stern test for the outstanding Ohio run defense (94 YPG, #5 FBS). This will be one of the most intriguing strength on strength matchups on the entire bowl season so GET CHO POPCONE! Jacksonville St doesn’t do much thru the air (176/99/54 pass yards L3G) and Ohio just shut down a potent Miami Ohio passing attack so the Gamecocks will have to lean on the ground game once again.
Trends, Intangibles, and More!
The Bobcats have booked 10 wins for the 3rd consecutive season and they’ll be looking to achieve the first 11-win season in program history in the Cure Bowl……BOTH TEAMS will be playing this game with interim head coaches…..Jacksonville St HC Rich Rodriguez has just agreed to return to West Virginia to coach the Mountaineers whilst Ohio boss Tim Albin is off to Charlotte to try and get the 49ers heading in the right direction……Ohio has won five bowl games in a row dating back to the 2017 Bahamas Bowl.
Summary
We prefer the Bobcats in this one given the matchup between their BRICK WALL run defense and the electric Jacksonville St run game. However, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding this game in terms of motivation, and it’s hard to judge which team will perform closer to their usual standards after losing their head coach. We’ll noodle this one for a bit and see if we can be convinced to back the favorite.
Conclusion
Holding pattern as per above.
UPDATE – No leanage
‘Official play’ means that this is one of our favorite plays of the week (perceived value, match-up, coaching, trends, etc.). We’re currently investing 25% more on these plays vs our ‘leans’. We’ll normally have two or three of these choices per week.
‘Lean’ means that we’re placing a standard size wager on the game. We’ll normally have about ten of these plays per week. Many members prefer to pick and choose amongst these games when finalizing their weekly investment cards so we’ll continue to refer to them as ‘leans’.
‘No leanage’ means that we won’t have any action on the game.
Team totals – We’ll list the implied number based on the point spread and total when our analysis is posted. If a team total ends up being an ‘official play’ we’ll post a widely available number at the time of pick release.