The Chippewas ended the season on fire to get into a bowl game while the Hilltoppers struggled down the stretch including losing 4 of their last 5. They will also be with an interim coach while they await Bobby Petrino and even though lance Guidry has interim bowl coaching experience I still think it will take away from his teams focus. Overall the Chippewas in my opinion had a more challenging schedule with Michigan State, Iowa, Northern Illinois, Toledo and Navy while Western Kentucky had Alabama there was not much else on the schedule other than LA Monroe.

I think Central Michigan has more of a chance of coming up with a shocking performance defensively. Western Kentucky relies on one guy way too much in Antonio Andrews. Andrews is the nation leader in all purpose yardage and is the heart and soul of this offense, but Central Mich truly has balance.

The Chippewas will lean on Zurlon Tipton who actually averages more ypc than Andrews with 6.07 and had 19 TD’s. Ryan Radcliff is an experienced QB who doesn’t make mistakes, but more importantly he does not get sacked. Western Kentucky has a great pass rush led by Quanterus Smith 12.5 sacks and an overall 23rd ranked sack %, but down the stretch they had just a 2.08% over their last 3. Cmich was 28th and was only sacked 14 times with 20 hurries on the season. It became clear that Western Kentucky struggled when they could not get to the QB. They faced 6 teams with top 40 pass protection units and went 3-3 in those games, but their wins came by only 1, 5, and 13. We are getting 6.5 points here and I think there is a lot to be said about how each team is coming into these games. Central Michigan might have played bad teams at the end of the season, but Western Kentucky did not play anyone great either. This game will also be played in Michigan at Ford Field where the MAC Championship is so the Chippewas should be completely comfortable.

Where to find Freddy?