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Meineke Car Care Bowl : North Carolina vs. Pittsburgh : YPPSYS NCAA FBS College Football Bowl Game Predictions 2009 / 2010 Season

By Andis Kaulins

In the regular season finale, the Tar Heels lost (again) to N.C. State 28-27 in an error-ridden game, in spite of being the dominant team statistically - a result which may point to flawed field management by the coaching staff. North Carolina is otherwise a very strong team, having defeated the only two ranked teams the Tar Heels played, Virginia Tech and Miaim of Florida. But they had trouble with weaker teams, losing also to Virginia and Florida State. The loss to a stronger Georgia Tech was expected. North Carolina has an exceptionally good defense but a weak offense, which can offset good defensive efforts.

Pittsburgh has been highly regarded and barely lost the season finale to undefeated Cincinnati 45-44, but the Panthers also lost at West Virginia and early in the season were defeated at home by none other than North Carolina State 38-31. The Wolfpack put up 530 yards against the Panthers as opposed to only 335 yards against the Tar Heels. Pitt did not beat a ranked team this year, so their true strength remains a bit of a mystery.

Our call: The opening line was 2 points in favor of Pittsburgh and is currently 3 points. This game looks like a defensive struggle with Pitt winning in the end due to its superior offense. YPPSYS ranks the Panthers 10th with a rating of 0.5 and North Carolina 28th with a rating of -0.4, a difference of .9 x 0 = 8.1 points. The schedule-adjusted margin of victory in YPPSYS II rates Pitt at 9.6 and North Carolina at 3.8 for a difference of 5.8 points. We call it 24-17 for the Panthers.

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).