Game Analysis

Pittsburgh (-11.5)  31   Eastern Michigan  20

This comes down to how much the big favorite really cares about this game low-tier bowl game against a MAC opponent that they likely don’t respect. If Pitt plays at their normal level then they should win by 2 touchdowns or more but pre-New Year favorites of more than 7 points in non-major bowls are just 51-92-3 ATS and Pitt applies to an 8-56-2 ATS subset of that trend. Eastern Michigan, meanwhile, is 21-4-2 ATS as an underdog or pick since September of 2016, including 2-0 in bowl games.

Pittsburgh averaged just 20.4 points per game against FBS opponents while averaging 5.1 yards per play against teams that would allow 5.7 yppl to an average team. However, Eastern Michigan is horrible defensively, as the Eagles allowed 6.1 yppl to a schedule of teams that would average only 5.2 yppl against an average team. Eastern Michigan allowed an average of 30 points to offenses that rate the same as the Pitt attack and the math projects the Panthers to score 34 points on 487 yards at 6.5 yppl in perfect dome conditions. Pitt did under-perform their statistics this season by averaging just 4.1 yards per redzone opportunity, which is really low, but the redzone efficiency should improve in this game against an Eastern Michigan defense that was terrible in redzone defense (5.5 points per RZ allowed). Pitt receivers Mack and Ffrench are both listed as questionable for this game but it really doesn’t matter, as they were both below the rest of the team in yards per target and the pass rating was the same the last 3 games in which one or the other missed.

Eastern Michigan has a decent offense that averaged 29 points and 6.2 yards per play (against teams that would allow 6.3 yppl to an average team) but the Eagles averaged just 20.3 points in 4 games against average or better defensive teams Kentucky, Illinois, Central Michigan, and Buffalo and Pitt’s defense is much better than any of those teams. Those 4 teams combine to be just 0.2 yards per play better than average defensively while Pitt’s defense is 1.3 yppl better than average. The Panthers allowed just 4.7 yppl and 22.5 points per game against FBS teams that would combine to average 6.0 yppl against an average defense and my math projects just 296 yards at 4.6 yppl and 19 points for Eastern Michigan.

Overall the math favors Pitt by 15.4 points with 53.2 total points, which is adjusted for playing in a dome. However, as mentioned above, big favorites in minor bowl games have historically suffered a letdown and Eastern Michigan has been the nation’s best underdog bet the last 4 seasons. I’ll pass.