Game Analysis

Cure Bowl

Saturday, December 17 – 2:30 pm Pacific

Central Florida (-6 ½)  27   Arkansas State  20

This game is being played in UCF’s former home stadium but there isn’t enough evidence to suggest playing close to home is an advantage in a bowl game. I’m sure that UCF will have more crowd support than Arkansas State, but what kind of reward is a bowl game in which you don’t even get to leave the city to attend? UCF should be rewarded for going 6-6 after losing all 12 games last season and I believe they’ll play hard for first-year head coach Scott Frost, who quickly took himself out of the running for the head coaching vacancy at Oregon, where he used to be the offensive coordinator. I’m sure that his players appreciate that loyalty and will give a great effort in this game to try to finish above .500 for the season.
Arkansas State, however, is no pushover, as the Red Wolves have a solid defense and a capable quarterback in Justice Hansen, who took over after two blowout losses to start the season. Arkansas State actually lost their first four games of the season, including a loss to FCS team Central Arkansas before winning 7 of their final 8 games to capture a share of the Sun Belt title. The key to the turnaround for Arkansas State was a defense that rebounded from two ugly performances to start the season (allowed 8.0 yards per play combined to Toledo and Auburn) and turned into a better than average unit – on a national scale. After getting burned for multiple big pass plays in those first two games the coaching staff made a change at free safety that solidified the secondary. The Red Wolves allowed just 4.8 yards per pass play in the 9 games with the current starting defensive secondary (CB Brown missed the week 4 loss to Central Arkansas, who averaged 7.0 yards per pass play in that game), which is good even when taking into account that the opposing quarterbacks faced on those games were mostly not very good (that group would combine to average just 5.3 yppp against an average defense). Only one time in those 9 games did Arkansas State allow 5.0 yards per pass play or more and no team averaged more than 5.4 yards per play against the Red Wolves over the last 10 games of the season. The run defense isn’t likely to be as good without the services of 340-pound defensive tackle Waylon Robinson, who is out with a knee injury, and possibly DL Chase Robison, who is listed as questionable. I don’t still don’t expect UCF’s below average attack (5.0 yards per play against teams that would allow 5.8 yppl to an average team, and the same rating with Milton at QB) to move the ball with any consistency in this game and I project just 4.8 yards per play for the Golden Knights in this game.

UCF has an even better defense, which was a major reason I played on the Knights so many times this season. That defensive unit yielded just 4.9 yards per play to teams that would combine to average 5.6 yppl against an average defensive team and they have a solid advantage over Arkansas State’s offense.

The Red Wolves switched quarterbacks in week 3 after struggling offensively the first two weeks and Justice Hansen has averaged 7.3 yards per pass play, which made up for a sub-par rushing attack that managed just 4.5 yards per rushing play (against teams that would allow 5.4 yprp). Hansen’s numbers aren’t actually that great considering he faced teams that would combine to allow 7.1 yppp to an average quarterback and overall the Red Wolves rate at 0.4 yards per play worse than average offensively with Hansen at quarterback. My math projects only 4.7 yards per play for Arkansas State in this game.

The projected yardage is pretty close in this game but UCF has an advantage in projected turnovers and on special teams and overall the math favors the Knights by 6 ½ points with a total of 46 ½ points. There is no value on the side and the under has just a 52.0% chance (at under 50 points) based on the historical performance of my model in bowl games. That’s below the 52.4% necessary to cover the standard -110 odds so I have no opinion on the side and I’d only lean Under at 51 points or higher.