This is an interesting and close match up when you look at how these two teams have done this season. The rankings have them pretty identical on a lot of levels including strength of schedule. Both teams like to pass the ball and struggle to stop the pass, and both have 1 point losses to power 5 teams. Western Kentucky lost by 1 at home to Vanderbilt, and LA Tech lost by 1 on the road to Arkansas. I did a lot more digging I think LA Tech has a nice edge in this one.
When you look at the fact that both of these teams will pass it over 55% of the time you have to take into consideration how they defend the pass, and what types of teams they have faced leading up to this spot. For LA Tech, their defense has struggled, but that's not surprising when you look at the fact that they played Arkansas 19th in passer rating, Texas Tech 2nd in passer rating, Middle Tennessee another team that likes to pass a bunch and is very good at it. They have done this in 3 road games out of their 4 total games vs. FBS. Meanwhile Western Kentucky who statistically shows up as a better pass defense has done it at home 2 games out of 4 and have faced not a single team in the top 25 in passing offense. The best passing offense was Alabama ranking 38th. Alabama as we know probably did not implement their full game plan in that game. Both Alabama and Miami Ohio threw for over 300 yards on this defense and had 4 TD's to 0 INT's.
Ryan Higgins who has done exceptionally well against some good defenses on the road is a SR. QB that I will take over Mike white on the other side. both have similar numbers Higgins 12 TD's 2 INT's 63.7% completion and 8.3 yards per attempt (3 road games in there), and White 9 TD, 3 INT's 63.5% and 10 yards per attempt. (2 road games). Both teams faced very good defenses, but as I mentioned Higgins impressive numbers have 1 extra road game built in.
The running game for each team pretty similar in the fact that LA Tech is better at running the ball and Western Kentucky is better at stopping. Edge to the home team here, but not a significant edge.
This is a short week and the home team has a big advantage. When I look into other details such as red zone and third down efficiency LA Tech has an edge as Mike White and that Hilltoppers offense just 31.58% on third down. The special teams has not been good for Western Kentucky just 7-11 on field goals and they have been penalized 6.6 times per game. Turnovers is pretty even with both teams -2 on the season. Western Kentucky however has lost 2 more and are -3 in margin on the road.
