Southern Miss vs

UL Lafayette

at New Orleans LA
Sat, Dec 17
6:00 PM Pacific
Rotation: 211
Odds: UL Lafayette +6, Total: 59

Game Analysis

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New Orleans Bowl

Saturday, December 17 – 6 pm Pacific

Southern Miss (-6)  30   UL Lafayette  24

Lean Under (59)

Southern Miss was favored 7 times this season against an FBS opponent, by an average of 15.2 points, and the Eagles won just 3 of those 7 games while losing 3 times as a double-digit favorite. Southern Miss also won as a dog at Kentucky and ended the regular season with a 15 point win as a 15 point dog against Louisiana Tech. To say that the Eagles are volatile is an understatement. The inspired upset win over the Bulldogs earned Southern Miss the right to play in a bowl game, so they should be pretty excited to be here. UL Lafayette, meanwhile, has a good history playing close to home in the New Orleans Bowl, which the Ragin’ Cajuns won 4 years in a row, 3 times as an underdog, before missing out on a bowl game last season. ULL has actually never lost a bowl game, as those 4 New Orleans Bowl victories are their only bowl games in program history. Coach Mark Hudspeth obviously knows how to get his team ready for a bowl game and the Ragin’ Cajuns have been a pretty trustworthy team this season (8-4 ATS). However, teams that have a good regular season spread record are generally not good bets in bowl games and UL Lafayette actually applies to a negative 8-43 ATS bowl situation. I’m not interested in playing Southern Miss based on that angle because my math model indicates that the spread is too high.

These teams are evenly matched from a yards per play perspective, as I rate Southern Miss at 0.3 yards per play worse than average on offense and 0.9 yppl worse than average on defense while ULL rates at 1.0 yppl worse than average offensively and 0.2 yppl worse than average on defense. Both defenses are 0.1 yppl better than the opposing offense and my math model projects both teams with 5.6 yards per play. The Eagles do have a pretty sizeable edge from the line of scrimmage, however, based on their extreme play differential. The Southern Miss plays a risk-reward style of defense that gives up a lot of big plays but also gets a lot of 3-and-outs (24% on 3rd down conversions allowed is extremely low). Those two characteristics lead to a lot of opponent’s drives with very few plays, which has led to Southern Miss having a +21.6 plays differential. My model projects the Eagles to run 17 more plays than UL Lafayette will run and for the total yards to be 441 yards to 348 yards in favor of Southern Miss.

That yardage advantage is offset somewhat by the Eagles’ horrible special teams, which is even worse without the services of their star placekicker Parker Shaunfield, who had missed just 1 kick all season before missing the final 3 games of the regular season with a quad injury that might also keep him out of this game (he’s questionable). Shaunfield is pretty valuable given that the backup kicker has only made field goals of 25 yards or shorter and has missed 2 of 12 extra points. Shaunfield has a rating of +1.04 points per game (based on points added/subtracted based on the distance of field goals made and missed) while backup Brauchle has cost his team 2.9 points in 3 games. That’s a difference of 2 points per game!

My math model favors Southern Miss by just 1 ½ points if Shaunfield is out and by 3 ½ points if he’s ready to return from his injury, but either way the line value is clearly on the side of Lafayette. However, that 8-43 ATS bowl situation that applies to ULL balances out that line value and I have no opinion on the side. I will lean with the Under and would consider the Under a Strong Opinion if the total goes up to 60 points or higher.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Southern Miss
  • UL Lafayette
SMIS
Offense
Defense

Rush

  • Run Plays 38.3 28.9
  • Run Yards 169.8 166.1
  • YPRP 4.9 6.2




Pass





  • Pass Comp 21.7 14.3
  • Pass Att 37.0 25.1
  • Comp % 58.7% 56.9%
  • Pass Yards 298.2 196.3
  • Sacks 2.5 2.1
  • Sack Yards 18.5 14.6
  • Sack % 6.2% 7.7%
  • Pass Plays 39.5 27.2
  • Net Pass Yards 279.7 181.7
  • YPPP 7.1 6.7

Total

  • Total Plays 77.7 56.1
  • Total Yards 468.0 362.4
  • YPPL 6.0 6.5

TO


  • Int 1.3 0.8
  • Int % 3.4% 3.3%
  • Fumbles 1.4 0.5
  • Turnovers 2.6 1.3
 
  • Points 33.3 30.3
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