G’s Expectation or This Season’s Last Pre-Championship Game

Posted on by G Robert

Hello all. It is with a disappointed heart that I type this week’s blog. First the season is winding down, but more importantly, my prediction ability has significantly waned. From 20-5 to 25-13 after Southern Mississippi couldn’t get it done against Tulane.

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I’ll be trying to turn it around in the final true bowl game of the season: Mobile’s Lending Tree Bowl featuring two really strong Group of 5 teams. The Mid American (MAC) Champion Miami RedHawks (56, 8-5) kick off against the Sun Belt Runners-up, Louisiana (or ULL) Ragin’ Cajuns (78, 10-3) at 7:30 Eastern Monday night. I hope this will be a really good game. Before we get into the details, a quick update. The key numbers in the Group of 5 are OffEff (99.2), DefEff (102.4), and GCR Ranking (107.0) – averages for comparison. Neither team beat a top 25 team with Miami going 0-3 (Iowa, Ohio State and Cincinnati) and ULL 0-2 (both against App State). Miami overall had a significantly more difficult schedule facing opponents with a combined 90-77 record (vs 82-82 for ULL), 9 good (6+win) opponents (vs 7 for ULL), 3 great (10+win) foes versus 2 for the Cajuns. That explains the ratings difference for the team. It is interesting in the new updated model for 2020, the Ragin’ Cajuns jump to 45 while the RedHawks drop to 66. When the MAC Champs have the ball, don’t look for a lot of scoring – they have a slightly below average 91 OffEff rating vs the Cajuns’ very strong 150 DefEff. And it gets worse for the Hawks because there average 102 DefEff will have to deal with Louisiana’s significantly strong offense (127 OffEff). And Mobile is a lot closer to Lafayette than Miami, Ohio. Vegas thinks the Ragin’ Cajuns by 14.0. I agree – Louisiana 62.4%.

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Thanks it – short sweet and to the point. I received some more feedback today from a reader and I really appreciate the thoughtful insights and challenges. For those that do not want to post their feedback in the chat, email me directly at grgettys@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Thanks for reading and hanging out this season – G