Day One of the bowl season is in the books. It was not the greatest of days for the JCB. We got rolled on the two underdogs we took as UTEP and Troy spent the first day of bowl season enjoying the rough conditions of a holiday woodshed contsructed for them by BYU and Troy. It was not a total loss. In fact, it was not a net loss at all. With wins on Northern Illinois and a couple of prop bets, the first day of bowl season saw us close with a 3-2 record. Despite making a pair of crappy picks, Bowl Chronicles forged out to an initial profit of +0.35 Units. Its not much, but its a start in the right direction.
After taking a couple days off in deference to Week 15 of the NFL Season, the bowl season picks up again tonight with the Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl between Louisville and Southern Mississippi. It begins a four night run this week with one bowl game per night. We’ve already announced the Pick-4 Round for this block of games. You really should enter and play as its the best contest anywhere on the Internet. Trust us on this. We’ve done market studies. Beyond that, you know Bowl Chronicles will be present to try and bilk some money from the Book off these games. Beginning, of course, with tonight’s game. What, you thought we’d sit out the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl? That’s just silly.
Beef O’Brady’s St. Petersbug Bowl: Louisville vs Southern Miss, 8:00. Lines, L’Ville -2.5, O/U 58
The matchup does not look sexy, so why watch? Beyond the fact that we’re running out of actual college football games to watch until next September, there’s a handful of reasons specific to this game. Both head coaches Charlie Strong and Larry Fedora coached with each other at Florida, so we have personal intrigue between the men in charge of the programs. That could lead to a pretty cool chess match of football strategy.
As far the performers on the field, there’s actually a nice collection of playmakers and national leaders in this game. 
Louisville’s Bilal Powell is 10th in the nation in rushing yards per game churning out more than 120 yards per contest. He and his senior laden offensive line will be swapping paint with a Southern Miss D than ranks 13th in rushing yards allowed. Southern Miss’s dual threat QB Austin Davis is 22nd nationally in total offense and has accounted for 28 touchdowns. He’ll be trying to gain ground against a Cardinal outfit thats ranked nationally 11th in total defense, 9th against the pass and 5th in sacks. The Cards Vic Anderson and Golden Eagles Reggie Hunt are 5th and 11th nationally in kickoff return yardages. Doug Beaumont also ranks 9th nationally for the Cardinals in punt return average. Southern Miss Kicker Danny Hrapmann is 5th nationally in scoring, kicking for more than 10 points per game. It might be a lower tier bowl game, but we end up with a match between one of the nation’s best running backs against a stout run defense, one of the best dual threat QB’s going up against an attacking, big play defense and an assortment of top notch specialists. There’s a lot to chew on for a random bowl game between the Big East and Conference USA.
Topping it off is the fact that this is the only bowl game between clubs who pulled out wins against their conference’s eventual champion. Louisville dominated BCS-bound UConn 26-0 back in October. Last month, Southern Miss temporarily derailed UCF’s run to the CUSA Championship. Throw in the fact that some hate has been tossed into the mix after some pushing and shoving during some of the bowl festivities leading up to game day and you have the makings for a possibly entertaining night. Both teams have had some nice wins, showing their capable. Both teams do several things well compared to the rest of the nation. Their head coaches are familiar with one another. And now there might be some bad blood between the clubs. Who says there isnt any drama in these smaller bowl games. I am taking the short favorite Louisville from the Big East. Here’s why:
Southern Miss played 4 bowl teams this season, went just 1-3 in those contests and allowed 40.5 points per game. Rutgers played six bowl teams. While they went just 2-4 in those contests, they allowed just 12.8 points per game. They’ve gone six straight games without allowing more than 20 points in regulation.
I dont buy the So Miss Rush D. They’re ranked 13th in the basic metric of yards allowed. But only five teams in the country faced fewer attempts. Their 3.62 yards per rush against is good, but hardly anything elite that their total yardage ranking would seem to indicate. How did they fare against some of the better rushing teams on their slate? Tulsa has the 15th ranked rushhing attack at the Golden Hurrican rushed for 228 yards and 6.7 ypc. UCF is the 25th ranked rushing offense and even thought the Golden Eagles beat the Knights, they still were gashed by Ronnie Weaver for 112 yards. They played the 116th, 113th, 91rst, 90th and 86th ranked rush offenses. Throw in woeful FCS squad Prairie View A/M and thats half their slate being run challenged, run averse or both. The six teams that finished in the top half in the nation in rushing averaged almost 150 yards a game, with a 4/5 yards per carry. They stymied Houston and Luoisiana Tech, but every other competent rushing attack who wanted to run the football against Southern Miss did so. In Louisville, they face one of the best tailbacks and offensive lines they’ve seen all year. I think the Cards end up with a huge day on the ground, the way South Carolina, Tulsa, UAB and UCF did earlier in the season against the Golden Eagles.
Southern Miss does not have the best luck against good FBS teams. It’s been more than six years since they beat an FBS team that went bowling. They’ve bested some FBS squads that had losing records during down years, but even in those spots they’ve had some trouble. Like last year, when they lost to this Louisville program. The Cards come into this game as a much better team than the Eagles faced and lost to last year.
In each of the last four years, a Big East team has mauled a Conference USA team by double digits in a pre-Christmas Day bowl game. In the Papajohns’s Bowl, USF crunched ECu 24-7 in 2006 and Cincy outraced Southern Miss 31-21 in 2007. Same thing for this bowl contest, which debuted in 2008. In that first year, USF routed Memphis 41-17, while a year ago Rutgers easded past UCF 45-24. When a middle of the pack CUSA team has taken on a middle of the pack Big East team in this low tiered bowl, its been a decided mismatch, with the edge going to the Big East. That history of head-to-heads between the leagues has me listening to Louisville laying the small chalk tonight against Southern Miss.
Bowl teams with a 6-6 record are on a 19-10 ATS run. Folks like to mock the bowl season for including all these mediocre .500 clubs, but the truth is these 6-win clubs have been pulling in a bounty for their backs in recent seasons. I just checked Louisville’s record. They are 6-6. Let’s roll with it.
Short chalk rules during the bowl season’s early phase. I’ve talked before about the basic rule of riding chalk before Christmas, riding the underdogs after Christmas and getting back on the chalk come January. We saw favorites go 3-0 on Day One of the bowl season. I’ve also stated that outside of riding the dogs during that middle portion that I dont adhere to this rule that strictly. The overall numbers dont back up Pre-Christmas Day chalk, for example. Those favorites are now 32-31 ATS. There is an angle within those numbers that does merit a look. The shorter the favorite, the better performing the chalk. In this era of added pre-Christmas Day bowl games, chalk of 3.5 or points or less are currently on a 18-7 ATS run. Both Northern Illinois and Troy covered in this role over the weekend. We’ll take Louisville to make it a clean sweep tonight.
Southern Miss is vulnerable on D, while the Cards are not. Yes, the Eagles have some nice run stoppers, but their secondary and pass defense is mistake prone and just not good. They will be forced to commit extra guys to the 
run to stop Powell, but that will only serve to make them more vulnerable to the pass. Whoever plays QB for the Cardinals, be it Justin Burke or Adam Froman, they should be able to have success through the air. And, they’ll hit a few big plays on play action. Louisville is a more sound defensive unit. They get pressure from their DEs Malcom Tatum and Rodney Gnat and do an amazing job disguising blitzes and coverage all over the field. I am sure Austin Davis will make some plays and deliver an offensive playmaker or two. But, Louisville’s D will answer back and this unit will deliver just enough plays behind the line of scrimmage and turnovers to eventually net the win.
The Pick: Louisville x 1…………..Bottomline? I just like the Charlie Strong/Vance Bedford coachnig acumen more that their counterparts on the Southern Miss sideline. They’ve played better teams than the Golden Eagles this year and we able to stop them on D and move the ball with Powell. That same formula will work tonight. It wont be the blowout the past Big East/CUSA matchups have been during the bowl season, but I still expect the Cards to take this by at least a field goal. That said, we’re spending a little extra juice and just playing the moneyline of -135. All Louisville needs to do is win, not cover as a favorite, for this to cash. It’s an extra $25 bucks in juice for every $100 unit. Good luck!
2010-11 Bowl Chronicles:
Overall Record: 3-2, +0.35 Units
Half Unit Plays: 2-1, +0.45 Units
Single Unit Plays: 1-1, -0.10 Units
Double Unit Plays : 0-0, +0.0 Units
By Bowl Chronicles: Louisville/Southern Miss Battle For Beef O'Brady … | Proctor December 21, 2010 - 11:55 PM
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