Marc Lawrence Playbook Newsletter 12/26
Remember: You Have A PLAYBOOK BEST BET Whenever Our Predicted Margin Of Victory Is 7 Or More Points In Favor Of Your Line
NOTE: Home team is shown in ALL CAPS. PLAYBOOK selection appears in Bold. Should we pass or not have a strong opinion on a game, neither team will be bolded.
Marshall over Ohio U by 1 With the United States car industry struggling to fight its way out of the toilet, the former Motor City Bowl decided to downplay Detroit’s connection to automobile assembly lines and crawl into bed with a pizza company instead. That decision parallels our own ‘perception versus reality’ approach to this game. The majority of stats and information available to sports fans portray Ohio University as owning all the edges while ‘Ol’ Reliable’ (our database) points us toward the underdog Herd. Ohio HC Frank Solich has built the Bobcats into one of the more consistent programs in his league, leading the team to its second MAC East title in the past four seasons. A win for the Bobbies here would not only tie a school record by giving them 10 wins on the year, it would also mark the first postseason win in the program’s history. In addition, Ohio is riding a current 8-2 ATS streak thanks largely to a defense that forced a nation-leading 36 turnovers in 2009. By comparison, Marshall appears to be in shambles: the 6-6 Herd looks more Blundering than Thundering, losing four of their last five games outright to close the regular season. Worst of all, a 52-21 annihilation by UTEP in the Herd’s finale was a sorrowful sendoff for Mark Snyder. And even though the school moved quickly to hire West Virginia assistant John “Doc” Holliday as his replacement, ‘interim coach’ Rick Minter will bear the responsibility of leading the team here. Now for the good stuff. Marshall owns a 6-2 SU and ATS record in bowl games and 6-6 bowlers off a loss are a wallet-filling 12-3 ATS. MAC bowl participants aren’t quite as fortunate, logging a dismal 1-7 SU and 0-8 ATS mark recently and the Bobcats have been tied to the whipping post in their series with Marshall, going 1-7 SU in the last eight meetings. The return of two- time 1,000 yard rusher Darius Marshall (missed the last two games with an ankle sprain) and several key offensive linemen that were slowed by late-season injuries means the Herd will be fired up and ready to rumble with one of their oldest rivals (schools are just 90 miles apart). The presence of Minter, a former head coach at Cincinnati, should further energize a Marshall squad that faced seven bowl-eligible teams in 2009. Both outfits sport similar green color schemes but only one will head home with the real ‘green’ at the conclusion of this one. With the Herd making its 8th bowl appearance since moving to the FBS in 1997,
we’ll Man-up with Marshall today.
N Carolina over Pittsburgh by 3 Both teams enter this game embarrassed, angry and ready to do some
serious hitting. North Carolina heads to Charlotte for what basically amounts to a home game after dropping its third straight meeting with hated rival NC State, a 28-27 loss that tarnished a four-game win streak including wins over Miami Fla, Virginia Tech and Boston College. But Pittsburgh’s season-ending losses were devastating as the Panthers played their way right out of a BCS bowl bid. A 3-point loss at West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl was followed by a 45-44 home loss to Cincinnati for the Big East title, a game where the Bearcats roared back from a 21-point deficit and capitalized on a botched extra point by Pitt. Panthers coach Dave Wannstedt tried to shake off the disappointment of being relegated to a mid-tier bowl by stating, “Our program is excited to play another football game” but building up his deflated team will be a huge task. “It almost feels like throwing the season away,” said senior DL Gus Mustakas about the loss to Cincy. “You go so far and you come so close... it really hurts, bad.” Fortunately for Pittsburgh, they own one of the nation’s premier running backs in Dion Lewis, who parlayed a rare combination of speed and power into 1,640 yards rushing, 3rd best in the country. But Lewis will be tested by a rugged Tar Heel defense that allowed just 93 rush yards per game and picked off 19 passes on the season. Our trip to the ATS archives yielded a surprisingly one-sided cache of information – all pointing towards North Carolina. For openers, ACC bowlers are 13-3 ATS versus Big East opposition, including 5-0 ATS off a loss. ACC bowl dogs are also 35-18-2 ATS, including 11-0 ATS the last 11 as dogs off a loss, and 6-0 ATS as dogs of less than 10 points against the Big East. UNC coach Butch Davis owns a solid 12-3 ATS record versus Big East foes off a SU and ATS loss while Wannstedt counters with a paltry 14-17 SU and 12-19 ATS mark versus .666 or greater competition. Sure, the Panthers will be out to make amends from last year’s mistake-filled 3-0 bowl loss to Oregon State but with poor-traveling Pittsburgh expected to bring only a token contingent of fans to this game, we’re not interested in laying points in an obvious coaching mismatch. In what should be a close one (Pitt’s three losses came by a total of just 11 points), Carolina prevails to post its best SU record of the decade.
Usc over Boston College by 6 Every bowl season, we hear about matchups where one team is overjoyed
to be playing while its opponent feels just the opposite – and this game looks to be 2009’s most obvious example of that phenomenon. Both teams enter with identical 8-4 records but Boston College’s season has been viewed as a success while Southern Cal fans can only see a year of underachieving disappointment. And why not? After storming its way to seven straight Pac-10 titles and BCS bowl appearances, the Trojans’ dynasty crumbled and USC fell out of the AP Top 25 for the first time in eight years. Freshman QB Matt Barkley couldn’t get the job done, finishing with a TD- INT ratio of 13-to-12 compared to 34-to-10 the previous season under Mark Sanchez. And the normally dominant defensive unit didn’t recover from the loss of eight starters, often playing with a glaring lack of emotion and intensity. BC started its own freshman QB in David Shinskie but the Eagles rallied to reach their 11th consecutive bowl game after being picked to finish near the bottom of the ACC by preseason pundits. A stop unit that finished 18th in scoring defense and 23rd in overall defense should be able to hold its own against a sputtering USC offense that failed to top the 21-point mark in four of its last five games (three SU losses, including two at the Coliseum). Much like the UNC-Pittsburgh game previously outlined, the ACC representative has been a good bet to ring the register. ACC bowl dogs are now 35-18-2 ATS overall and Boston College has won eight of its last nine bowls outright. Even better, the Eagles are featured in this week’s INCREDIBLE STAT on page 2 where they’re an amazing 41-4 SU against non-conference foes – with no loss coming by more than four points! Don’t be swayed by USC head coach Pete Carroll’s guarantee that “we’re going to play this game like it’s the national championship game.” The hard truth is the Trojans were 30-5 ‘In The Stats’ versus fellow bowlers the previous five years – but were only 3-4 ITS this season. Though the two schools have already signed to play a two-game series in 2013-14, we like the hard-trying visitors from Beantown to cash in today’s ‘preview’ bout.
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Originally Posted by johnnyra21
