Welcome back sports fans. In baseball lore, Ernie Banks of the Cubs was often quoted as saying something like, “it’s a nice day today, boys, let’s play two.” Well, we have a double header tonight, but first let’s review yesterday’s game.
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In the IS4S Salute to Veteran’s Bowl, Jacksonville St (9-5/76) started strong converting their first drive for a touchdown. Then they flubbed a trick play that resulted in a sack/fumble/TD for the Troy (8-6/80) defense. Two Trojan field goals in the second quarter and the Gamecocks were down 13-7 at the break – but they owned the second half with a long FG (51 yards) and an 11-play 42-yard drive to take the lead back with 10 minutes to play. Troy had a couple of chances to comeback but fell short each time. Final score Jacksonville St 17, Troy 13. The GCR picked the wrong team for the win, but did cover by picking JXST with TROY-1.5
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At 5:00 tonight on ESPN, we have the StaffDNA Cure Bowl in Orlando between the Old Dominion Monarchs (9-3/42) and the South Florida Bulls (9-3/36). With a second-place finish in the Sun Belt Eastern Division, the Monarchs lost to top-ranked and undefeated Indiana 27-14 way back in August. A hiccup against division foe Marshall (5-7/97) followed by a blowout loss to playoff bound James Madison (12-1/20) were their only smudges. They shutout Sun Belt runner up Troy 33-0. They did get a Core 4 win with a 45-26 trouncing of Virginia Tech – in fact, 8 of their wins were by 10 or more points. South Florida, who finished 4th in the American, beat Florida 18-16 in the Swamp and Boise St 34-7 to open the season. They also gave North Texas (11-2/26) its only loss in the regular season. They lost to playoff team Miami FL and to conference foes Memphis and Navy – both by 3 points. 8 of their wins were by 10 or more points as well. Vegas likes South Florida -4.5 and the GCR agrees they will win 54.0% with OD covering. These teams have a lot of similarities – a win against a Core 4 opponent, a win against a better team in the conference, and a lot of large wins. The GCR thinks it will be a field goal type game – maybe something like 31-27.
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Don’t change the channel when the first game is over because with an expected 8:30 kickoff ESPN will host the 68 Ventures Bowl played in Mobile, AL. Another Sun Belt team, the Louisiana Rajin’ Cajuns (6-6/99) will take on the Delaware Blue Hens (6-6/98) who are in their first year as an FBS team. The Blue Hens won the Cigar Bowl in 1946 and the Refrigerator Bowl in 1954 (no, we did not make this fact or the bowl names up) in an era where most of the bowls were for smaller teams (other than the Rose, Orange, etc). In a team’s transition year, getting 6 wins does not automatically qualify them for a bowl like established teams. There are 82 spots and if 83 had qualified (and accepted, but that’s a completely different can of worms), Delaware would have been the first team out. A new FBS team can only qualify if there is no other qualifier available. Tomorrow, their fellow Conference USA mate Missouri St, who also joined the FBS this season, will play in a bowl too. They would have been the second team out – more on that tomorrow.
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The Rajin Cajuns had a horrific start to the season with just 1 win in the first 4 weeks – and that to FCS McNeese. Then they went 1-3 again with Marshall being the only victim. Then came November with wins over South Alabama, Texas St, Arkansas St, and ULM to get the required sixth win – in fact, they ended up just one conference win away from winning the Sun Belt Western Division. The Blue Hens started 3-1 including a win over 9-3 UCONN and a loss at Colorado. Then reality hit with a 2-5 middle of the season. They had to beat UTEP (2-10/138) in the final game to get the magic 6th win and they did easily 61-31. Louisiana is on a hot streak which we think influenced the Vegas line LAU-1.5, but the GCR has Delaware winning the game in a close on, just 51.0%. When two teams play in a neutral site and there is just a single point difference (99th and 98th in this case), the game will be very close.
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That’s it for today. Thank you for reading and especially sharing with others. Tune in tomorrow where we will travel to Frisco TX to talk about the Xbox Bowl, JoJo and G
