Legal Commentary

9. Emerald Bowl, San Francisco, CA, Boston College vs. USC, 8:00 pm

Being in this bowl is a great success story for the Eagles, who in the preseason were picked to finish last in the ACC Atlantic Division.

Being in this bowl, on the other hand, is mortifying for the Trojans, who entered the season ranked in the top five in the nation in everybody's polls but self-destructed on the field. USC played flat in losing to Arizona 21-17 to close out their season, otherwise they would be playing Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. Maybe they were just subconsciously avoiding Ndamukong Suh.

Having east coast Boston College and west coast Southern Cal play each other is surely unusual, but it may be destiny, given the fact that the two schools had previously already scheduled a two-game series in the 2013 and 2014 seasons. This one will be the warm-up.

Our question is: how many fans from Los Angeles and Boston are going to come to see this game in San Francisco in December, and if not, does the Bay Area have enough diehard college football fans to fill the stadium - on the 2nd day of Christmas? Take a look at a chart at the Wizard of Odds for bowl ticket sales by participating colleges last season - it is an eye opener, as these rankings may be far more important - ultimately - than the football polls. For example, last year USC sold 33,179 tickets for the Rose Bowl, while Boston College sold a paltry 1,400 tickets to the Music City Bowl.

Our Call: The opening line favored the Trojans by 7 points and the current spread is 9 points. YPPSYS ranks USC 11th with a rating of +0.4 (only the top 17 teams have plus ratings this season) and Boston College ranks 39th with a rating of -0.7, a difference of 1.1 x 9 = 9.9 points. When their respective schedule-adjusted MOVs (margins of victory) are compared, USC is rated at 5.4 and BC is rated at 1.9, a 3.6 point difference. We call it 30-24 for USC.

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 20, 2009 (boomark / email).