Buck Store Bowl: Ohio vs Troy

Sorry Patrick, lol. Buck Store Bowl: Ohio vs Troy When Ohio has the ball: No one is going to mistake Ohio for a good offensive team. All season they only had two games in which they logged a positive score both running and passing the ball. One of those games was the first game of the season against the horrific Texas State, and Ohio just barely managed positive run and pass numbers against them. Their best game of offense came against Toledo, who also have a below average defense. Ohio's biggest problem is that they don't have the great dual-threat QB that their offense requires. 1st stringer Wyndham has an above average ypc average but a below average ypp average. 2nd stringer Maxwell saw plenty of action for the injured Wyndham. Maxwell put up better passing numbers but worse running numbers. Wyndham gets the start tonight, so as long as he's in there expect the Bobcats to favor the run. By land or by air, either way it will be tough against a slightly better than FBS average Troy defense. Troy's run defense did fade just a little late in the season, so maybe they'll be some cracks there for Ohio to manage some successful drives. Troy's pass defense was really good to start the season, having 3 great games against Clemson, Southern Miss and Idaho, all of whom have above average passing games, while having one bad game against the bad New Mexico State in the middle. That fits Troy's odd negative correlation of -55% of pass defense scores versus pass offense ranks. After that hot start Troy's pass defense was just very average the rest of the season. When Troy has the ball: Troy's offense is honestly not much better than Ohio's and finished the season on a major slide. In their final 3 games, all against below average defenses, they posted an average run score of -56 and an average pass score of -87. I'm not sure what happened, but after playing well and winning at home against Appalachian State in week #11 they lost the ability to move the ball. That doesn't bode well against an Ohio defense that was stellar against the run all year (10th ranked, with an average run defense score of +61) and posted 3 of their best 4 run defense scores in their final 4 games. Ohio's pass defense's ranking of 88th is below average, but they did play better in the 2nd half of the season than the first, which should aid their cause. As mentioned, Troy's pass offense was pretty dismal in their final 3 games, and was still below average even prior to those 3. They had some of their better games against the better pass defenses they faced, so their success tonight throwing the ball is a bit up in the air, figuratively and literally. Weather: Small chance of precipitation with very light winds. 60+ degrees. In sum: The defenses have all the advantages in this game, unless Troy's passing game can have one of it's better efforts, something it was capable of earlier in the season. As such, I recommend a full unit on the Under. Ohio has limited the success of far better offenses than Troy this season, and I project this game to be a near coin flip. In a lower scoring game where the points are even more valuable, I recommend a unit play on Ohio as well. With as strong as Ohio's defense was playing in the final month versus how poorly Troy's offense played in their final 3 games, an upset wouldn't surprise me in the least. Matchup Grids