Week 15 – AAC Championship Game – Tulane at Army
posted December 4
The Game
WHOA, NELLIE!
The Army Black Knights will be hosting the AAC Championship Game at beautiful Michie Stadium on Friday night as the Tulane Green Wave come to town. Army (11-1) has rolled thru their schedule with little resistance other than the blowout loss at the hands of mighty Notre Dame. Tulane (9-3) has outscored AAC opposition to the tune of 330-120 and looked unstoppable before last week’s home loss vs Memphis. They were already locked into this game so maybe they were looking ahead?
The Details
Tulane -5 Army (45.5)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Tulane -5
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Tulane 25.25 Army 20.25
Tulane offense vs Army defense
The Green Wave have one of the most balanced and lethal offenses in the nation (#12 rushing, #7 passing efficiency) and they’re gonna put a lot of stress on the Army stop unit (296 YPG, #9 FBS). QB Darian Mensah (20-5 TD to INT) is deadly when utilizing his talented complement of THROW GAME weaponry including WRs Mario Williams (831, 17.3, 4 TD) and Dontae Fleming (577, 19.9, TD) and don’t forget that Tulane boasts one of the most talented RBs in college football in Makhi Hughes (1,306, 5.4, 15 TD). Army has been stout vs the run (#11) and decent vs the pass (#30 pass efficiency D) but they’ve faced an extremely weak set of opposing QBs.
Army offense vs Tulane defense
The Black Knights have moved like a TREMENDOUS MACHINE on the ground and they lead the country in rushing offense (313 YPG) thanks in large part to the incredible work of QB Bryson Daily (1,348, 5.6, 25 TD!). Daily is an absolute beast and he’s carried the ball an impossible 102 (!) times over the L3G. RB Kanye Udoh and SB Noah Short are also dangerous pieces that must be respected in the ground game, and note that Short is also a dangerous threat out of the backfield (15, 305, 20.3). He also just might be the fastest man alive **. Tulane beat Navy 35-CACK a few weeks ago in a 888 STAR MEGALOCKS SUPREME POWER LOCK winner and they allowed 120 or fewer rushing yards in seven consecutive games before last week’s loss to Memphis. We expect them to do a good job vs the run (#34 FBS run D) and note that Army has averaged just 3.6 YPC in each of their L2G.
** Fact check: Not impossible.
Trends, Intangibles, and More!
In most cases we don’t get too carried away with the value of home field but you’ve gotta respect Army on their home turf (49-14 SU since 2014) and the weather is gonna be nice and chilly….Not sure how big of a deal that’ll be but it’s certainly either “neutral” or a benefit to Army…..The good news for Tulane is that it’ll be a clear night with light winds……This is Army HC Jeff Monken’s first RODEO in terms of a conference title game as Army just joined the AAC but he’s led Army in several important contests vs Air Force, Navy, Notre Dame, etc…..Troy HC Jon Sumrall led Troy to back-to-back FUN BELT titles (2023, 2022) and now has a shot to lead Tulane to an AAC Championship.
Summary
We believe that Tulane’s balanced attack and run defense puts them in a good spot to win and cover this game. We need to do a bit more digging but will likely have a Tulane-related play at some point. There appears to be legit TWO-WAY ACTION on this game and we don’t see the spread moving much from here.
Conclusion
Holding pattern as per above. Stay tuned.
UPDATE
Lean – Tulane -5
Posted 8:50am Dec 5
-5 is listed virtually everywhere. One major book in Vegas is posting -4.5.
‘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.