Missouri State vs. Arkansas State
While a lot of college students are enjoying the holiday break and playing Xbox, Missouri State vs. Arkansas State is this year’s Xbox Bowl in Frisco, TX. The Bears and Red Wolves play in Thursday’s lone bowl game with a 9 p.m. ET kickoff from the Ford Center at The Star, which is the Dallas Cowboys practice facility, but also hosts high school football, two bowl games, and the Conference USA basketball tournament.
The Red Wolves are bowling for the third straight season, while the Bears are in their first bowl game after recently transferring from FCS to FBS. Arkansas State beat App State by a point to pick up their sixth win for bowl eligibility, while Missouri State won their sixth game at Liberty on Nov. 8, but they have dropped two in a row.
Ryan Beard will not coach for Missouri State, as he’s been hired at Coastal Carolina. OC Nick Petrino will serve as the interim.
Odds from Circa Sports as of December 15, 8:45 a.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.
Xbox Bowl: Missouri State vs. Arkansas State (-1, 56.5)
Thursday, Dec. 18, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
This game is pushed to The Deuce because ESPN proper will be showing women’s college volleyball, as the championship tournament rolls on. Regardless, it is good exposure for Conference USA and the Sun Belt. We saw more of Missouri State than we probably wanted to during the regular season because of the conference’s agreement with the ESPN family of networks to play Tuesday and Wednesday games in October.
Everything goes through the quarterback on offense for these two teams. Barring injury, Missouri State QB Jacob Clark will surpass 3,000 yards for the season in this one, as he enters with 2,895 over 341 pass attempts with a 65.1% completion rate. He has thrown 11 interceptions and taken 40 sacks, a byproduct of making that leap from FCS to FBS, but he does have 24 TD passes as well. The 6-foot-5 senior is not a good runner, though, a departure from what we’ve seen in these early bowl games thus far.
Fortunately for the Bears, Shomari Lawrence is a good runner, as he needs 36 yards to sit 1,000 for the season. Missouri State only has 12 rushing TD and seven of them belong to Lawrence, who has really been the only back to get consistent work with 183 carries. The Bears finished the regular season with just a hair over six yards per play and actually had 6.74 YPP in their four November games.
It is a bit surprising in the transfer portal era that Jaylen Raynor has stayed loyal to Arkansas State. He’s had another nice season with over 3,500 yards of total offense. He does have a pedestrian 16/11 TD/INT ratio, but has progressed as a passer with a career-best 67.2% completion rate. That’s 5.5% better than what it was last season and he’s also got career-highs in carries, rushing yards, and rushing touchdowns this season.
Top targets Corey Rucker and Chauncy Cobb each have 69 catches. Incredibly, Cobb has zero receiving TDs, while Rucker only has three. This is an offense that has only scored 30 offensive touchdowns on the season and enters this ball game 107th in yards per play. To make matters worse, the defense is 114th in the nation in yards per play allowed. To be fair, they gave up over seven yards per play against non-conference opponents with Arkansas and Iowa State as the most notable opponents on the schedule.
Similarly, Missouri State did better in conference play, but non-conference was an issue, especially the game against USC that began the season with a 73-13 loss.
Missouri State vs. Arkansas State Xbox Bowl Prediction
Per Jeff Sagarin, Arkansas State played the 106th-ranked strength of schedule and Missouri State the 114th, so I’m a bit surprised we haven’t seen more movement in this line given the yards per play disparity between the teams. Arkansas State did tie for 28th in sacks during the season and only Ball State and Troy allowed more sacks than Missouri State. That could be a huge factor in this game and, arguably, make the difference.
Pick: Arkansas State -1
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