Game Analysis

Lean – Louisiana-Lafayette (+3)  30   Jacksonville State  29

Jacksonville State had a great first season at the FBS level, going 8-4 and 8-3-1 ATS. Louisiana-Lafayette, meanwhile, needed to win to earn this bowl game, which is being played in their home state, but they are without their top two quarterbacks.

The Ragin’ Cajuns’ #3 quarterback Chandler Fields was the starter last season and he appears to have improved significantly given his 71% completion rate over the final 3 ½ games after dynamic freshman Zeon Chriss was injured (opening game starter Ben Wooldridge was injured in week 3). Fields’ compensated yards per pass play is 0.3 yppp worse than the team’s average and he’s not nearly the runner that Chriss was (548 yards on 65 runs) – so the Ragin’ Cajuns attack projects to be 0.4 yards per play worse than their season rating, which puts them 0.1 yppl worse than an average FBS offense. UL-Lafayette is projected to gain 410 yards at 5.6 yppl in perfect dome conditions against a better than average Jacksonville State defense that’s yielded just 5.0 yppl to a collection of teams that would combine to average 5.4 yppl against an average defense.

The Gamecocks had to rely on their defense most of the season because the offense was 0.6 yppl worse than average (5.5 yppl against teams that would allow 6.1 yppl to an average team). However, Zion Webb got nearly all the snaps at quarterback the last 5 games after splitting time with Logan Smothers pretty evenly the first 7 games of the season. Webb rates better than Smothers in compensated yards per pass play (but still at -0.6 yppp) and especially in the run game, where he’s contributed 713 yards on 106 runs (6.7 yprp to Smothers’ 4.9 yprp). Smothers certainly could play but Webb got all the snaps in their season-ending loss to New Mexico State, and I’ll assume it will be Webb all the way in this game (unless he struggles). The Gamecocks are just 0.2 yppl worse than average with Webb at quarterback and I project 432 yards at 5.8 yppl in this game against a Louisiana defense that rates at 0.2 yppl worse than average – but is better defending the run (0.1 yprp better than average) than defending the pass (0.5 yppp worse than average), which benefits them against a run-heavy Jacksonville State offense. At first glance, you might expect the ULL defense to be worse without LB Kendre’ Gant, who had 6 sacks and 6 other tackles for loss, but Tyler Guidry started in his place in the final regular season game and had 2 sacks, which gives him 5 sacks for the season despite starting just that one game.

The edge for Louisiana-Lafayette in in projected turnovers (+0.7 points) and in special teams (+2.4 points). Jacksonville State’s been about average in special teams but they’ll be without their kicker, who handled both place-kicking and kickoffs, and ULL is good in special teams with an average starting field position from kickoffs differential of +1.3 yards, a +4.6 net punting differential, and a kicker that missed just one field goal all season. I’ll lean with Louisiana-Lafayette at +3 points or more.