Michigan Draws South Carolina In Outback Bowl
you can touch a ray if you go to Tampa. woo.
Michigan returns to Tampa for a rematch against South Carolina, as predicted weeks ago by Brett McMurphy. As far as bowl matchups against SEC teams with the same record as you go, South Carolina is an ideal matchup if your preference is to get any sort of win and get to the next season—and this is my preference.
The Gamecocks rank 67th in S&P+ because that ranking system thinks they're a 6-6 team that's been fortunate. Tale of the tape:
MICHIGAN | thing | SOCAR |
---|---|---|
OFFENSE | ||
31st | SD RUN RATE | 94th |
8th | RUSH O | 67th |
10th | LINE YARDS | 54th |
76th | PASS O | 48th |
118th | SACKS ALLOWED | 71st |
24th | PASSING DOWNS | 102nd |
72nd | OVERALL | 88th |
DEFENSE | ||
43rd | SD RUN RATE | 105th |
8th | RUSH D | 25th |
2nd | LINE YARDS | 41st |
2nd | PASS D | 56th |
2nd | SACKS | 72nd |
3rd | PASSING DOWNS | 31st |
10th | OVERALL | 46th |
The Gamecocks' offense is a passing-oriented dunk and dunk outfit; their defense is okay but only that. They've played two games against defenses in Michigan's vicinity; they scored ten points against both Georgia and Clemson, failing to crack 300 yards in either game.
S&P+ favors Michigan by about nine. So naturally Vegas favors a team that lost to Kentucky by ten? By more than a touchdown?
South Carolina opened as an 8 1/2-point favorite over Michigan in the Outback Bowl https://t.co/TkM1xdNyDr
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) December 3, 2017
That might be a data entry error. It is exceptionally rare for systems like S&P+ to differ by that much from the Vegas line. It's either that or Vegas pricing in O'Korn, but if Brandon Peters's health is that much of a swing and unknown why would they even have it on the board? I don't know. A dollar says typo.
Anyway. Good matchup Michigan should win.
UPDATE: score one for typo.
@chengelis no Vegas line or consensus offshore line yet, but 5Dimes has MI -9 over South Carolina. I was thinking it should be around -7, so waiting to see what CG or Westgate opens at.
— Johnny Detroit (@Johnny_Detroit) December 3, 2017
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:48 PM ^
South Carolina is the fifth-worst bowl eligible P5 team to S&P+, ahead of only UCLA, Arizona State, Duke, and Kentucky. If we are healthy, we should demolish them.
December 3rd, 2017 at 10:30 PM ^
December 4th, 2017 at 9:39 AM ^
Naturally, David Pollack and his fellow mouthbreathing SEC friends on College Football WTF on ESPN all picked South Carolina because their QB is better than John O'Korn. Truly insightful analysis.
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:47 PM ^
Hard to conjure any excitement for play in an irrelevant bowl. Biggest plus is extra practices.
December 3rd, 2017 at 6:25 PM ^
So if it's not the playoff you're not interested?
December 4th, 2017 at 5:35 AM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:49 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:50 PM ^
MSU fans are boycotting Outback Steakhouses. This is what it's all about.
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:05 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:07 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 7:49 PM ^
They'll have to fight Olive Garden for it.
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:07 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:37 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:05 PM ^
to try to keep the mayhem down.
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:08 PM ^
behind police HQ, and they're expecting a rush as people look to scrape up cash for Xmas presents.
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:34 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:48 PM ^
They should boycott Outback Steakhouse because Outback Steakhouse is terrible.
December 4th, 2017 at 12:00 PM ^
like Outback.
December 3rd, 2017 at 11:17 PM ^
Spary tears taste like Bloomin Onions?
December 4th, 2017 at 9:33 AM ^
December 4th, 2017 at 9:32 AM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:51 PM ^
It's astonishing that we could have that huge of a disparity between our rush offense and sacks-allowed rate. You'd think that being really good in one of the two would make you at least passable in the other, just from defenses being forced to overplay it. Hopefully we never see that again.
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:56 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 6:42 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 7:26 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 8:31 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 8:52 PM ^
December 4th, 2017 at 12:35 AM ^
December 4th, 2017 at 9:05 AM ^
I think he will convince a few others to at least kick the tires and visit.
December 3rd, 2017 at 8:48 PM ^
December 4th, 2017 at 1:45 AM ^
That's a real risk, IMO. Michigan needs to develop a pipeline of Harbaugh guys coming through the program. It's really, really hard to keep three QBs on the roster that think they should be starting.
Maaaaybe you can keep McCaffrey happy for another year. Peters maybe not so much.
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:55 PM ^
That line is WRONG. M will be favored.
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:07 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:58 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 8:14 PM ^
The Big Ten is always the freaking Coconut Shrimp.
When do we get to be the damn Bloomin' Onion?
Chain restaurant bias is a real thing, people.
December 3rd, 2017 at 4:59 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:07 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:08 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:08 PM ^
December 3rd, 2017 at 6:48 PM ^
This, a thousand times this. Has he updated the quest lately? Thought Outback pretty much stopped all contact.
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:16 PM ^
They stopped talking to him, so it falls on this blog to pick up that torch and carry it across the finish line.
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:16 PM ^
Did not realize we were that bad at giving up sacks. Better tighten that up for next year a whole lot if we expect to go far. Don't care who your QB is, if he has no time he's not going to do much.
That said, SoCar should be a good win to get 2018 off on the right foot.
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:20 PM ^
Ummmmmmmmmm....have you watched Michigan football this season?
December 3rd, 2017 at 5:42 PM ^
Unfortuntely yes, but seeing it in writing that we were 118th in something is still quite surprising.
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