Game Analysis

Lean – Nebraska (-4)  29   Boston College  20

Boston College is mediocre offensively, averaging 5.5 yppl against FBS teams that would combine to allow 5.5 yppl to an average attack. The Eagles’ coaching staff made a quarterback change for the final 3 games by inserting Grayson James to take the place of Thomas Castellanos, who abruptly left the team the week he was told he wasn’t the starter. James was horrible as a starter at FIU and was terrible in a week 5 start against Western Kentucky (4.9 yards per pass play against a bad pass defense), but he played better in the 3 starts at the end of the season and overall was about the same as Castellanos. The rushing attack got better over the last 4 games with RB Jordan McDonald running for 308 yards on 45 runs (6.8 ypr) after not running the ball at all in the team’s previous 7 games against FBS teams. If McDonald had been in the running back rotation all season the Eagles’ run game would have been 0.25 yprp better (0.8 points per game). All-ACC tackle Ozzy Trapilo has opted out and won’t play and that hurts the offense a bit (0.6 points).

Nebraska’s defense was 0.3 yppl better than average in the regular season (I did not include the 14-7 game against Rutgers, which was played in heavy wins and made both teams ineffective throwing the ball). That unit will be missing a few players that contributed to the defense (Butler, Gbayor, Williams) who combine to be worth 1.7 points. I did not make an adjustment for CB Tommi Hill because the defense was better in the 5 ½ games he missed.

Nebraska’s offense wasn’t as good as hoped with highly touted freshman Dylan Raiola at quarterback, as the Cornhuskers were just 0.1 yards per play better than average while Raiola was only 0.2 yppp better than average (not including that Rutgers game in heavy wind). Leading rusher Dowdell (614 yards but only 4.3 ypr) hit the transfer portal and is not on the depth chart, but that just means more carries for Emmett Johnson (5.3 ypr), who recently announced that he’s staying with the team. WR Isaiah Neyor has opted out to apparently prepare for the NFL draft. I doubt any NFL team will be drafting a receiver that averaged a sub-par 7.0 yards per target with a lowly 39% success rate and not having Neyor for this game could be a plus for the Huskers – although I’ll make no adjustment given that the next 5 wide receivers were not that much better (7.2 YPT but a much better success rate).

The Boston College defense allowed 5.8 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.9 yppl against an average team, although I rate that unit at 0.3 yppl better than average after adjusting for the outlier against Virginia Tech (9.3 yppl allowed). The big loss for the BC defense is the news that All-American DE Donovan Ezeiruaku will not play in this game. Ezeiruaku led the nation in sacks with 16.5 (55% of BC’s sacks) while also leading the Eagles in tackles, which is very rare for a defensive lineman. My algorithm suggests that he’s worth 2.4 points, but it could be more than that given his dominance.

The math favors Nebraska by 6.1 points and BC applies to a 13-63-1 ATS bowl situation that plays against teams that were playing better than expected at the end of the season. The Eagles are on a 5 game spread win streak but bowl underdogs that have covered the spread in 5 or more consecutive games are just 2-21-1 ATS. I’ll Lean with Nebraska at -4 or less.