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Little Caesars Pizza Bowl : Marshall vs. Ohio : YPPSYS NCAA FBS College Football Bowl Game Predictions 2009 / 2010 Season

By Andis Kaulins

7. Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, Detroit, Michigan, Marshall vs. Ohio, 1:00 pm

Marshall head coach Mark Snyder (22-37 over five years) resigned November 29 after Marshall's 52-21 blowout loss to UTEP. Marshall ended the season 6-6, with no signature wins. Snyder will be replaced next year by West Virginia assistant coach John "Doc" Holliday, who has received a 5-year contract. Rick Minter, the current defensive coordinator, is to coach the bowl game. This makes the bowl game outcome more unpredictable. Moreover, the previously injured 1,000-yard-tailback Darius Marshall will reportedly be ready to play, together with several formerly injured starters in the offensive line. Marshall has won 10 of the last 12 games between the two teams.

Ohio reached the Mid-American Conference title game, losing to Central Michigan 20-10 to finish out an excellent 9-4 regular season, in which they played e.g. SEC Tennessee nearly even in a 24-23 loss. Both teams have comparably strong offenses but the Bobcats have the better defense, averaging one yard per play less.

Our call: The opening line was 4 points in favor of Ohio but that has dropped to 1.5 points at the time of this writing. YPPSYS ranks Ohio 47th with a rating of -1.4 and Marshall 90th with a rating of -2.7, which would make Ohio the favorite by 1.3 x 9 = 11.7 points. Ohio has a MOV of 4.1 and Marshall -3.1 for a difference of 7.2 points. However, YPPSYS II puts the Bobcat schedule at a rank of 84 (rating -2.5) compared to the Thundering Herd schedule rank of 79.5 (rating -1.9), for a difference of .6 x 9 = 5.4 points, which makes Ohio a thin 1.8 point favorite. We call it for the Bobcats 23-20.

NCAA FBS College Football Bowl Game Predictions 2009 / 2010 utilize YPPSYS ratings and rankings (yards per play advantage - offense and defense, won-loss record, schedule of difficulty according to Massey Ratings) and YPPSYS II for the top 40 teams (YPPSYS II = YPPSYS I supplemented by MOV, margin of victory plus the schedule difficulty recalculated based on YPPSYS ratings).

YPPSYS COLLEGE FOOTBALL RATINGS AND RANKINGS - NCAA DIVISION I-A (FBS) are based on net yards per play advantage (NAYPPA), strength of schedule, defense and adjustment for losses through December 5, 2009, after Week 14 of regular season games.

NAYPPA = net yards per play advantage (YPP OFF minus YPP DEF)
YPP OFF = net yards per play gained on offense
YPP DEF = net yards per play allowed on defense
Schedule = Schedule difficulty thus far in the season according to Massey Ratings
(SchP=Schedule Partial)
YPP Team Statistics are based on data found at cfbstats.com
Odds are taken from Todd Beck's College Football Prediction Tracker
as of Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:42:07 AM

The prognostications cover numerous bowl games and great match-ups. Few games can be said to be mis-matched and ultimate winners are in doubt in many.

Full post as published by LawPundit on December 18, 2009 (boomark / email).