Game Analysis

Army (-14)  27   Louisiana Tech  13

Louisiana Tech got invited to this bowl game after Marshall dropped out due to lack of players and the Bulldogs are excited to be playing in this game. A good number of players did not return to the team but Louisiana Tech has one of the nation’s best defensive coordinators and I suspect that they’ll do a decent job defending Army’s option attack.

Louisiana Tech defensive coordinator Jeremiah Johnson has never had a worse than average run defense in 18 seasons as a defensive coordinator – most of those being at Northern Iowa, which had a better than average run defense on an FBS scale even though they had FCS talent. Johnson even got Kent State’s normally horrible defense to be better than average defending the run in his one season there in 2022 and he took a Bulldogs’ defense that had been at the bottom of the nation in run defense the previous two seasons and turned them into a unit that allowed just 4.2 yards per rushing play (to teams that would combine to average 4.7 yprp against an average defense). That unit is down a couple of impact starters in DT David Blay (led team in sacks and total TFLs) and LB Kolbe Fields (#2 in TFL and in total tackles) along with 5 other contributors to the defense who had a combined 11 starts. I value those players as worth 0.6 yards per play, which equates to 4.1 points in this game.

Army’s offense averaged 31.4 points per game and 6.2 yppl (against teams that would allow 6.1 yppl to an average attack) but the Black Knights did lose top back Kanye Udoh to the transfer portal (he signed with ASU). Udoh ran for 1117 yards at 6.2 ypr in the regular season and I value him as worth 1.4 points. Army is projected to gain 351 yards at 6.0 yppl against a weakened but still well coached Louisiana Tech defense.

The Louisiana Tech offense is led by Evan Bullock, who completed 67.4% of his passes and threw only 2 interceptions on 273 passes but sits in the pocket too long and takes too many sacks instead of throwing the ball away. Bullock averaged only 5.5 yards per pass play (against teams that would allow 7.2 yppp to an average quarterback) and he’ll be without top WR Tru Edwards, who entered the transfer portal and wasn’t practicing with the team in the early bowl practices (I’ll assume he’s still not with the team). Edwards averaged 9.0 yards on his 100 targets and easily led the team with 897 receiving yards and is worth 1.2 points. Fellow receivers Lewis and Jackson are also missing from the depth chart. Those two combined for 8.3 YPT on 53 targets while the available wide receivers combined for just 6.8 YPT and are worth another 0.8 points. Bullock will likely look for TE Eli Finely more and he averaged 8.5 yards per target. The top 3 running backs are on the depth chart but they combine for just 4.5 ypr (against a schedule that would allow 5.5 ypr to an average back) and the Bulldogs are down one starting offensive lineman. Louisiana Tech’s offense projects to be 1.8 yppl worse than average but Bullock doesn’t put the ball in harm’s way often, which will help a bit. Louisiana Tech also does not have their place kicker with them, which will hurt on special teams because he booted 51 of 56 kickoffs for touchbacks.

Army’s defense was 0.1 yppl worse than average in the regular season, allowing 5.4 yppl to teams that would combine to average 5.3 yppl against an average team and they were worse over the last 4 games without edge rusher Kyle Lewis, who was #2 on the team in sacks with 4 in 9 games (he’s still out and worth 0.5 points).

After all the adjustments the math favors Army by 13.8 points with a total of 39.9 points.