Game Analysis

Iowa (-2)  27   Southern Cal  26

Friday, December 27 – 5 pm Pacific

I feel that both of these teams are enthusiastic about playing in this bowl game and that should lead to a competitive battle between the offensively dominant USC team and a defensively stingy Iowa squad. USC’s offense blossomed in the first year under OC Graham Harrell’s version of the Air Raid offense, as the Trojans averaged 6.8 yards per play and 33.2 points per game against teams that would combine to allow 5.4 yppl and 23.2 points per game against an average attack. The Trojans are even better offensively when only taking into account the passing numbers of freshman Kedon Slovis, who took over in week 2 for a sub-par JT Daniels. Slovis completed 72% of his passes and averaged 8.1 yards per pass play (against teams that would allow 6.2 yppp to an average quarterback and USC’s offense rates at 1.5 yards per play better than average with Slovis at quarterback. Iowa’s defense should be up to the task of keeping the Trojans’ attack in check, as the Hawkeyes’ defense yielded just 13.2 points per game and 4.8 yppl to a schedule of teams that would combine to average 28.7 points and 5.9 yppl against an average defensive team. USC’s offense does have an advantage over the Iowa defense that allowed 6.5 yppl or more 3 times this season to good offensive teams Iowa State, Wisconsin and Minnesota (although they held Michigan and Penn State to a combined 4.4 yppl). The math projects 393 yards at 6.1 yppl for USC in this game.

USC also has a slight advantage when Iowa has the ball, as the Trojans rate at 0.4 yppl better than average defensively in 10 games with top defensive player Drake Jackson playing (0.3 yppl better than average in all games) while the Hawkeyes’ offense is just 0.3 yppl better than average. The math projects 383 yards at 5.6 yppl for the Hawkeyes.

While USC has the edge from the line of scrimmage, Iowa rates as a slightly better team overall due to their excellent specials teams. My math favors Iowa by 1.7 points with 54.7 total points in the good weather expected for this game but I’ll call for slightly lower total scoring given the 50.2 projected points based on a compensated (and adjusted) points model. I’ll pass.