Game Analysis

Lean – Central Florida (+7.5)  27   Louisiana State  30

This game means a lot more to UCF than it does to LSU, as the Knights continue to have a chip on their shoulder and want to further validate their 25 game win streak with another upset of an SEC team after beating a highly ranked Auburn team 34-27 as a 10 point dog (they also beat Baylor by 10 points as a 16.5 point dog in their only other New Year’s day bowl game back in 2014). I would have picked UCF to win straight up if McKenzie Milton were healthy, but the math still leans with the Knights to keep this close with Darriel Mack Jr. at quarterback. The Knights become very run heavy with Mack behind center and they have a lot of speed that could give LSU some problems. Leading rusher Greg McCrae average 9.0 yards per run and Mack is a gifted runner as well (372 yards on 52 runs). Mack’s passing was bad in his first start back in week 8 against East Carolina (just 56 yards on 23 pass plays) but he averaged 12.3 yards per pass play with 70% completions in the AAC Championship game against Memphis as the Knights racked up 707 total yards at 8.0 yards per play. Obviously, Mack’s passing will fall somewhere in the middle and overall he averaged 7.2 yards per pass play on 66 pass plays (against teams that would allow 6.8 yppp to an average QB) in the 3 games where he was running the offense for more than just garbage time snaps. That’s a significant drop from Milton, but LSU will be playing without both starting cornerbacks, as Kristian Fulton is injured and All-American Greedy Williams is protection himself for the NFL draft. UCF has some very fast receivers running against those backup corners so it’s possible that Mack could put up big numbers if he can be accurate on down the field throws – although I project him at 5.1 yards per pass play. Overall, I have UCF gaining 405 yards at 5.3 yppl with Mack at quarterback, which should be enough to keep them in this game.

LSU’s offense is just mediocre (5.5 yppl against teams that would allow 5.4 yppl to an average team) and UCF is 0.2 yppl better than average defensively (5.5 yppl allowed to teams that would average 5.7 yppl against an average defense). LSU is projected to gain 412 yards at 5.6 yppl. The yardage is pretty close but LSU does have superior special teams and overall the math favors The Tigers by 4 points with a total of 56.5 points. However, I was conservative on my adjustment for both of LSU’s starting cornerbacks being out (just a 0.3 yppp adjustment) and I think UCF cares more about this game than LSU does. I’ll lean with the Golden Knights plus the points.