Boston College vs

Cincinnati

at Birmingham
Thu, Jan 2
12:00 PM Pacific
Rotation: 271
Odds: Cincinnati -7.5, Total: 54.5

Game Analysis

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Cincinnati (-7.5)  30   Boston College  22

It looks like nasty weather for this game in Birmingham with 15 mph winds and rain, but both of these teams prefer to run the ball anyway so the bad conditions won’t have as much affect as would normally be the case. Cincinnati’s only losses this season were to Ohio State and Memphis (twice) and the Bearcats are certainly the better team, but I don’t see much value in this game.

BC will be without their head coach, who was fired after they upset Pitt in their final game to get to this bowl and running back A.J. Dillon has decided to skip this game to prepare for the NFL combine. Hard to say how having an interim coach will affect the Eagles (they’ve been about 50% ATS in bowl games over many years) but losing Dillon is not an issue. Dillon’s 5.3 ypr can easily be replaced by David Bailey, who averaged 5.8 ypr this season (the top two backups combined for 5.6 ypr) and quarterback Dennis Grosel averaged 6.8 yards per run after taking over for starting quarterback Anthony Brown, who wasn’t a good runner. Brown was a better passer, however, and the play-action, deep-ball pass game was 1.4 yards per pass play worse with Grosel than it was with Brown (compensated for opposition faced) – although Grosel was still 0.6 yppp better than average. Cincy has a good defense that has been 0.7 yards per play better than average (5.3 yppl allowed to teams that would combine to average 6.0 yppl against an average team) and the Eagles are projected to gain a modest 368 yards at 5.2 yppl in this contest (adjusted for the inclement weather).

Cincinnati’s offense is 0.1 yppl worse than average and their run-oriented attack figures to get more run-heavy in the bad weather. That’s good for a BC defense that is average defending the run by horrible against the pass (7.9 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would combine to average 6.2 yppp against an average defense). Cincy isn’t like to take full advantage of that bad pass defense and my math projects 403 yards at 6.1 yppl for the Bearcats.

Cincy has an edge from the line of scrimmage and the Bearcats should enjoy better field position given how good their special teams are. The 41.1 net punting average is among the best in the nation and will lead to a lot of long fields for the Eagles in this game, enhancing Cincy’s line of scrimmage advantage. Overall, the math favor Cincinnati by 7.9 points with 52.3 total points. I’d lean Under if the total gets up to 55 points.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Boston College
  • Cincinnati
BC
Offense
Defense

Rush

  • Run Plays 45.8 36.6
  • Run Yards 218.3 167.3
  • YPRP 5.0 4.9




Pass





  • Pass Comp 14.5 22.7
  • Pass Att 26.9 37.3
  • Comp % 53.8% 60.8%
  • Pass Yards 188.8 282.9
  • Sacks 1.4 1.7
  • Sack Yards 9.1 11.8
  • Sack % 5.0% 4.4%
  • Pass Plays 28.3 39.0
  • Net Pass Yards 179.7 271.1
  • YPPP 6.3 7.0

Total

  • Total Plays 74.1 75.6
  • Total Yards 407.1 450.2
  • YPPL 5.5 6.0

TO


  • Int 0.6 1.2
  • Int % 2.1% 3.2%
  • Fumbles 0.8 0.6
  • Turnovers 1.4 1.8
 
  • Points 30.9 31.7
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