Game Analysis

Note: Georgia Southern QB Shai Werts is probable. I’ll Lean Georgia Southern at -7 or less.

Lean – Georgia Southern (-7)  30   Louisiana Tech  20

I’ll assume that Georgia Southern will be without quarterback Shai Werts, who is doubtful but possibly could play, which means that the Eagles will need to depend on third-string signal caller Miller Mosely with #2 Justin Tomlin also out. Miller nearly blew my Best Bet win against Appalachian State with his 3 turnovers after Tomlin left the game but a 78-yard catch and run kept the Eagles close enough to cover the number in that game. Mosely only completed 6 of 15 passes against Appalachian State with two interceptions, which isn’t too terrible given that the Mountaineers only allowed 48% completions for the season. However, Mosely projects to be considerably worse than Werts passing and running the option, as Werts and Tomlin combined for 5.3 yards per run while Tomlin managed just 50 yards on 12 runs against an Appalachian defense that doesn’t defend the run well. That’s a small sample but Mosely wouldn’t be third-string if he were as good as Werts and Tomlin and the adjustment is worth about 3 ½ points in my estimation. Georgia Southern still projects to average 5.4 yards per rushing play and 6.4 yards per pass play against a sub-par Louisiana Tech defense.

Louisiana Tech has a quarterback injury too, as main QB Luke Anthony is out for this game. The Bulldogs alternated quarterbacks and Aaron Allen played in every game, although he took only about 30% of the snaps. Allen and Anthony were equally bad on a compensated yards per pass play basis, as both rated at 2.1 yppp worse than average, but Allen has been much more careless with the football and has thrown 5 interceptions on 97 pass attempts. That’s not completely random, as Allen had 21 of his 97 pass attempts defended, which would equate to 4.4 predicted interceptions. Anthony had just 20 of his 221 pass attempts defended against and had the same number of interceptions as Allen (5) while throwing 2.3 times as many passes.

Georgia Southern has an aggressive secondary that gets their hands on a lot of passes (15.3% of passes are defended, which is very high) and the Eagles registered 14 interceptions so Allen is more likely to throw 2 or more interceptions than he is of throwing 1 or fewer. Louisiana Tech has one of the worst rushing attacks in college football, as the Bulldogs averaged just 3.9 yards per rushing play against mostly bad run defenses that would allow 5.7 yprp to an average team, and they have no chance of running the ball against a stout Georgia Southern defensive front that’s yielded just 4.1 yprp this season (to teams that would average 4.8 yprp). That should result in a lot of passing by Allen, which is why he has a good chance of throwing multiple picks in this game. Overall, the math projects only 304 yards at 4.6 yards per play for Louisiana Tech despite playing this game in perfect dome conditions.

Georgia Southern would be a good play laying 7 or less if Werts is healthy enough to play and the math still leans a bit with the Eagles even though the dome helps Louisiana Tech more than it does the run-heavy Eagles. However, I have no opinion on this game unless Werts can play, in which case I’d lean with Georgia Southern at -7 or less.