Game Analysis

Tulane (-3.5)  34   Louisiana-Lafayette  28

Tulane is about as mediocre as it gets, with their 6-6 record, a mediocre offensive rating (0.1 yards per play better than average) and a mediocre defensive rating (0.1 yppl worse than average). But, the Green Wave are better than a Louisiana-Lafayette squad whose best win all season was against a below average Arkansas State team and that collected their other 6 victories over teams with an average rating of 21 points worse than average.

The only thing that UL-Lafayette has going for them is an offense that is 0.8 yards per play better than an average FBS attack, averaging 6.7 yards per play against teams that would combine to allow 5.9 yppl to an average team. However, the Ragin Cajuns’ have a defense (if you want to call it that) that is 1.2 yppl worse than average, allowing 6.5 yppl to teams that would combine to average only 5.3 yppl against an average FBS defense. Tulane is no offensive juggernaut but the Green Wave have proven that they can rack up big numbers against bad defensive teams, as they averaged 481 yards at 7.2 yppl against Nicholls State, Memphis, ECU, and Navy – the 4 teams they faced that are 0.4 yppl or more worse than average defensively. None of those teams are as bad defensively as ULL is and they are collectively 0.5 yppl better than the ULL defense.

My model is calling for 457 yards at 7.1 yppl for Tulane in this game while ULL is projected at 424 yards at 6.6 yppl. Tulane also has an edge in projected turnovers and in special teams and overall the math favors the Green Wave by 6.4 points with a total of 63.2 points after taking 2.8 points off the math projection to account for the wind and rain that is expected. I’ll lean with Tulane at -4 points or less.