Both of these teams come off impressive wins, but there is certainly more value in the number with the Bearcats, a team that typically can beat anyone in this conference on a given night. They are 2-5 ATS on the season compared to Temple who is 7-1 ATS now, and come off a cover by 21.5 points against South Florida. Iâll take the Bearcats as they looked their best in their last game. This also should be a team that is fired up after losing this game last year despite being +261 yards of offense as they turned the ball over 5 times.
Make no mistake about it Temple does not have the same defense and they have faced mostly an easy schedule in terms of offenses faced. Temple is going to slow this game down and they are going to do it by running the ball 60% of the time at home, for an average of 65 total plays. Cincinnati is very quietly a pretty solid defense ranking 49th vs. the run, and 39th in points per play allowed. Based on that they should give up 22 points to Temple which I can easily see them covering. The Cincinatti defense is arguably the best run defense Temple has faced all year and they need to run the ball to win. They average 5.21 ypc in wins, and 2.44 in losses.
Now I think the bigger key here and why I like the Bearcats so much is the fact that they only have given up 8 total rushing TDâs. They have held opponents to 38% TD rate in the red zone which is very good. PJ Walker, the Temple QB really not capable of beating this team with his arm. Actually when looking at it 5 of those rushing TDâs allowed came in one game against South Florida (#4 rushing team in the nation). Temple is not in the top 50. Cinciâs offense put them in terrible position time after time. Temple has only faced 2 teams in the top 50 in rushing defense and struggled to score in both. Their opponents love to give up rushing TDâs compared with Cinci as only one team has allowed less than 10 rushing TDâs.
When Cinci has the ball it should do good things. Gunner Kiel is a 5 star QB who still has all the motivation in the world to play well. He is a guy that can still get drafted believe it or not, but it was just yesterday that he was the third string QB for whatever reason. It seems like Kiel has been around for forever, but heâs a solid option here coming off the East Carolina game where he threw for 348 yards 4 TDâs and 0 INTâs. Heâs given this Bearcats offense some light and that in combination with the Bearcats stifling run defense I believe we are in good shape for a cover if not the outright upset.
