Auburn -125 4.5% play
Auburn -125 4% play
“The whole purpose of the bowl game is to win it,” – Bryan Harsin. He’s 3-2 bowl games, and I think despite some of the guys missing this Auburn team wants to win and is motivated. Derick Hall, the best defensive player for Auburn said he wants to win it for the guys who haven’t won a bowl game. This team lost the previous two bowl games, but this is Bryan Harsin’s chance, and I think they will be plenty motivated to get a Bowl win vs. a ranked team. Auburn has actually had a solid season with some great moments. They nearly beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl, they beat Arkansas and Ole Miss, who are both playing on New Year’s Day, and played well on the road. They still have several key players who will play in this game including Derick Hall, and Tank Bigsby, and I think they clearly have more talent than Houston. This game is also played just 145 miles away from campus and I think they will get some fans there that will also help the team’s motivation.
If we take a look at the match ups I think Auburn has a key advantage with Houston ranking 124th in tackles for loss allowed, while Auburn’s front 7 ranking 15th in tackles for loss. Houston ranked 97th in sack % allowed, and that came against an average defense ranking 85.5th in getting to the QB. Houston has also faced just two top 50 rushing defenses on the year. They lost to Cincinnati, and needed a kick off return TD at the buzzer to beat SMU BY Marcus Jones who will won’t be playing in this game. There were 4 games they really struggled to run the ball, Texas Tech, East Carolina, SMU and Cinci. They went 2-2 in those games, and the 2 wins honestly were probably lucky. Against, East Carolina they needed OT at home to hold on. This will be like a road game for them, and expect them to struggle offensively again.
Auburn should be able to run the ball here in my opinion. They ranked 37th in epa run offense against an average rush defense that ranked 49th. Here they face 11th ranked epa run defense, but that was againt an average epa run offense ranking 79.9. Houston played just two teams in the top 50 in epa run offense, and lost both games giving up over 5 yards per cary. I’m interested to see what Auburn does at QB, I think we see TJ Finley, but also Dematrius Davis who had a bigger role in bowl prep making it a bit more difficult for Houston to prepare here. Houston’s HC Dana Holgersen also has not been good in bowl games going 2-6 over his career.
