Game Analysis

Best Bet – **Under (60.5) – Georgia Southern  26   Liberty  25

Lean – Liberty (+4)

Saturday, December 21 – 11:30 am Pacific

Liberty appears to be a good offensive team, given their 31.1 points per game on 435 yards per game at 6.4 yards per play in their 11 games against FBS opponents. However, the Flames have also faced a schedule of mostly bad defensive teams that would combine to allow 6.5 yppl and 36.0 points per game to an average offensive team. In this game, however, Liberty will be facing a Georgia Southern defense that is 0.2 yppl better than average (5.8 yppl allowed to teams that would average 6.0 yppl against an average defense), which is 0.9 yppl better than what the Flames have faced on average this season. Liberty will also have fewer possessions than normal, as Georgia Southern runs the option offense at a very slow pace and tends to possess the ball for long stretches. In fact, my model projects Georgia Southern to have a 35:00 to 25:00 time of possession advantage in this game. Liberty upped their average tempo in their final 6 games after their bye week, which adds about 4 total plays to this game, but I still project the Flames to run just 63.5 plays for 352 yards (5.55 yppl), which is well below the 435 yards per game they averaged to get their 31 points per game.

Georgia Southern’s option attack should work as well as normal in this game, as Liberty’s run defense (0.3 yprp worse than average) rates the same as the average defense that the Eagles faced this season. Georgia Southern averaged a modest 329 yards per game at 5.3 yards per play, and the 29.5 points per game (27.7 in regulation) that they averaged against FBS opponents is randomly high given their stats. Not only were the Eagles well below average in total yards per game but they were also below average in yards per play, 3^rd-down conversion rate (31.5%), total 4^th-down conversions (6 all season), and red-zone efficiency. Not turning the ball over (only 9 turnovers in 11 FBS games) helps a bit but doesn’t come close to explaining how Georgia Southern could average 29.5 points per game given their overall stats. In this game, the Eagles are projected to gain 348 yards and score 25.5 points.

The math picks this game even with a total of just 50.9 points with just 700 combined total yards at 5.4 yards per play. I understand why the total is higher, as Liberty games averaged 60.4 total points per game and Georgia Southern’s games averaged 59.0 total points per game. However, Liberty’s opponents combined to average 58.9 total points per game, so the Flames are only 1.5 points higher scoring than average after compensating for opponents. Georgia Southern, meanwhile, faced opponents that combined to average 63.0 points per game, as the Sun Belt was loaded with horrible defensive teams and good offensive teams – and they also faced LSU. The Eagles games averaged only 55.6 total points in regulation, as they had an overtime game with Coast Carolina that added 37 points to what was a 10-10 game in regulation. So, Georgia Southern’s games were much lower scoring compared to the opponents that they faced. A compensated points model projects just 51.1 total points for this game, which is pretty close to what the projected stats would predict. I’ll go Under 59 points or higher in a 2-Star Best Bet and for 1-Star down to 58 points.