I reach out to you today, oh wonderful college football fans, with a bit of a heavy heart. Two more bowls were cancelled due to Covid outbreaks. Virginia won’t be able to field a team which nullifies the inaugural Fenway Bowl in Boston leaving SMU at home. And one of tomorrow’s games, the Military Bowl was cancelled because Boston College doesn’t have enough players leaving East Carolina stranded. That means the Mustangs, Pirates, and Memphis (all of the American Conference) are now bowl-less – which leaves the American with only 4 bowl games. Will the NCAA match these conferences foes for a make-up bowl? Who knows? It’s more unlikely, in my humble opinion, because they are the in same conference. I’ll try to keep us all up to date on the ins and outs, but my gut says there will be more. As I was typing the later paragraphs, Miami FL announced they will be dropping out of the Sun Bowl vs Washington St. Just more to keep up with.
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Yesterday Georgia St 8-5 (69) trounced Ball St 6-7 (125) 51-20 in the Camellia Bowl. A balanced attack with over 200 yards passing and rushing along with defensive scores on a scoop six and a pick six led to the difference. It was fairly close at the half but a 28-point outburst in the 3rd put it away. That finished the Sun Belt at 3-1 and dropped the MAC to 1-5 with 2 games to go. Here are the standings (I hope I’ve got all the updates correct) as they stand today:
| Conference | Bowls | Bowl Change | Overall Record | vs Power 5 Record | vs Group of 5 Record |
| American | 4 | -3 | 2-0 | 1-0 | 1-0 |
| ACC | 7 | -3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| Big 12 | 7 | N/C | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| Big Ten | 9 | +1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| C-USA | 8 | N/C | 3-5 | 0-0 | 3-5 |
| Indies | 4 | N/C | 2-1 | 1-0 | 1-1 |
| MAC | 8 | N/C | 1-5 | 0-0 | 1-5 |
| Mtn West | 7 | -1 | 4-0 | 1-0 | 3-0 |
| Pac-12 | 5 | -1 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-1 |
| SEC | 12 | -1 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0-2 |
| Sun Belt | 4 | N/C | 3-1 | 0-0 | 3-1 |
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Tomorrow morning at 11:00 (all times Eastern) we do have a bowl game when W Michigan 7-5 (63) of the MAC takes on Nevada 8-4 (62) of the Mountain West in the Quick Lane Bowl held in Detroit. Nevada will attack with the pass (8th in the country) and will face the balanced offense and defense of the Broncos. When the Wolf Pack have the ball, they bring an Offensive Efficiency Rating (OER) of 140 (they score 14 points for every 10 points their opponents normally allow), good for 17th in the country, but will face a DER (Defensive) from the Broncos of 103 (they give up 10 points for every 10.3 their opponents normally score). When the Broncos line up on offense, an OER of 111 will try to penetrate a Nevada DER of 103. So, both defenses have DERs of 103 (W Michigan is slightly better when expanding significant digits), but the difference in offensive scoring ability is profound. Vegas has W Michigan -7.0, but in an upset call, the GCR see that offense as making the difference – Nevada 55.8%.
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That’s it for today. Thank you for checking us out here at GCR headquarters (aka my couch at home), G. Here are all the games with updated records, rankings, and Vegas odds. See you tomorrow…
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