Game Analysis

Best Bet – *Oklahoma (+14 at -115)  34   Louisiana State  42

Oklahoma is not getting the respect that they deserve. I understand that LSU is a great team but they were favored by only 7.5 points over Georgia in the SEC Championship game and the Bulldogs are not a better team than the Sooners – and certainly not 6 points better. LSU beat Georgia by 27 points while Oklahoma needed overtime to beat Baylor in the Big 12 Championship game. Those results have certainly influenced this line but Oklahoma actually out-played Baylor by 15.2 points from the line of scrimmage in that game, so they were better than they appeared and are not 14 points worse than any team – not even close.

Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley has proven that his offense can score on any defense and the Sooners averaged 40 points in their 5 losses the last 3 years, including scoring 82 points against Georgia and Alabama in the playoffs the last two years against better defenses than this LSU defense. The Sooners have lost just one game by more than 7 points since early in the 2016 season and that was a spread covering 11-point loss against Alabama as a 14-point dog in last year’s playoffs. Alabama got up 28-0 in that game and Oklahoma scored 34 points in the final 3 quarters to make a game of it, so even a horrible start isn’t enough to keep the Sooners from staying within 14 points of a great team with the offense they’ve got.

Oklahoma’s offense is actually better than LSU’s offense from a compensated yards per play perspective, as Oklahoma has been 3.0 yards per play better than average with Jalen Hurts in the game at quarterback (8.5 yppl against teams that would allow 5.5 yppl to an average team) while LSU has been 2.7 yppl better than average with Joe Burrow in the game (8.1 yppl against teams that would allow 5.4 yppl). Oklahoma’s defensive rating, meanwhile, has only 0.2 yppl worse than LSU’s defense this season, rating at 0.8 yppl better than average (5.3 yppl allowed to teams that would average 6.1 yppl against an average team) while the Tigers’ defense was 1.0 yppl better than average with their starters in the game (5.1 yppl allowed to teams that would average 6.1 yppl against an average team).

For the season these teams are very even from the line of scrimmage (Oklahoma is actually slightly better), but LSU’s defense did improve later in the season while Oklahoma is missing two key starters in DE Ronnie Perkins (suspended) and S Delarrin Turner-Yell (collarbone injury). I rate LSU’s defense at 1.2 yppl better than average with their current lineup and dampening the affect of their negative outliers (allowing 8.5 yppl to Mississippi) while Oklahoma’s defense goes from 0.8 yppl better than average to just 0.5 yppl better than average with Perkins and Turner-Yell out. Still, even with those adjustments the math model would project a pretty close game.

Digging in deeper I found that Oklahoma’s offense was relatively worse against better defensive teams while LSU’s offense was relatively the same regardless of level of opposing stop unit. Using the regression equations to predict Oklahoma’s rushing and passing as a function of the level of the opposing run and pass defenses would still yield a prediction of 493 yards at 7.2 yppl for the Sooners in this game, which is includes a negative adjustment to their rushing attack with backup RB Rhamondre Stevenson out (suspended). LSU, meanwhile, is projected at 535 yards at 8.1 yppl against what is still an underrated Oklahoma defense – even without two starters.

Overall, the math favors LSU by just 6.6 points (with 78.2 total points in perfect dome conditions) based on the projected stats but Oklahoma does tend to underperform their stats – and I get LSU by 9.5 points after taking that trend fully into account. However, a part of that discrepancy between Oklahoma’s actual scoring margin and their stats-based projected scoring margin is likely random, so 7.5 or 8 points is a more reasonable projected margin for this game.

My projections assume that both starting running backs, Kennedy Brooks for Oklahoma and Clyde Edwards-Helaire for LSU will both be 100%. That’s probably true for Brooks, who teammates say looks great, but Edwards-Helaire has a hamstring injury and is being considered a game-time decision. LSU’s offense would really suffer without Edwards-Helaire, as the other 3 backs have combined for just 551 rushing yards at 4.7 ypr while Edwards-Helaire averaged 6.5 ypr this season. The difference in the math if he doesn’t play is 2.3 points and there is solid value on Oklahoma even if I assume that LSU’s star running back 100%, which is likely not the case even if he plays. I’ll take Oklahoma in a 1-Star Best Bet at +14 at -115 odds or better (Strong Opinion down to +13).