Old Dominion vs. South Florida
We’ve got a Wednesday college football doubleheader, beginning with the StaffDNA Cure Bowl in Orlando featuring Old Dominion vs. South Florida. This is one of those games that sums up the state of the bowl season, as both teams head into action without their starting quarterbacks. Monarchs QB Colton Joseph is entering the transfer portal and Bulls QB Byrum Brown is pondering his future while the program tries to put together a worthy NIL package to keep him around.
We’ve also got an interim head coach for USF, as Alex Golesh was hired at Auburn and Brian Hartline won’t fully take over until Ohio State’s CFP run is over. That’s the bowl season in a nutshell pretty much, with the coaching carousel and the transfer portal front and center for two teams that had really solid 9-3 regular seasons.
Odds from Circa Sports as of December 14, 1:45 p.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.
StaffDNA Cure Bowl: Old Dominion vs. South Florida (-3.5, 53.5)
Wednesday, Dec. 17, 5 p.m. ET (ESPN)
As you would expect with Brown’s absence, this line has shrunk, with the Bulls favored by just 3.5 after opening more than a touchdown favorite. Brown was actually snubbed in the Heisman voting, as he really should have landed in the top 10, racking up 3,158 passing yards and over 1,000 rushing yards. Backup QB Gaston Moore had 20 pass attempts and seven carries during the regular season, getting work in six games after transferring in from Tennessee. Transferring to USF wasn’t a bad gamble for Moore, as Brown missed a big chunk of last season due to injury.
Golesh recruited Moore to UCF and also to Tennessee before he wound up following him again to Tampa and now he’ll get his opportunity. While we don’t really know what to expect from Moore, the rest of the Bulls should be pretty motivated to play, as a win would give the program its third season with 10 wins. Defensive line coach Kevin Patrick will serve as head coach and tight ends coach Jack Taylor will fill in as the offensive coordinator. DC Todd Orlando is still with the team.
After winning four games combined in three seasons under Jeff Scott, USF went 23-15 under Golesh, including wins in the Boca Raton Bowl and Hawaii Bowl to swing the tide of 6-6 seasons into a winning campaign. We’ll see how things play out here, as the Bulls were second in the nation in yards per game and fifth in yards per play, but most of that was due to Brown.
This wasn’t a one-trick pony type of team, though, as they also finished in the top 40 in yards per play allowed on defense and allowed a hair over five yards per play in American Conference action. They actually head into this game 23rd in the nation in EPA/play margin, but, again, the regular season stats are not great to rely on here given that Brown won’t play.
As mentioned, the Monarchs will also be without their starting QB, a 1,000-yard rusher himself in Colton Joseph. Joseph accounted for 34 total touchdowns, including 13 on the ground, and had 6.4 yards per carry on a team-high 158 attempts. Backup Quinn Henicle only threw 15 passes in his redshirt freshman season after throwing 25 passes last year. Like Joseph, he’s a pretty good runner, averaging seven yards per carry on 54 attempts over the last two seasons, though he did have a 92-yard run in 2024 that has skewed the numbers a little bit.
At least Old Dominion has less turnover on the sideline, as head coach Ricky Rahne signed a four-year contract extension late last week. Rahne and his assistants were able to get Henicle, who had offers from Bowling Green, Army, and several FCS schools, even though Joseph was a slightly higher-rated recruit in the same class. So, expect a run-heavy gameplan here for the Monarchs, looking to play on what Henicle does best.
Joseph started all season and still only had 290 pass attempts, but created a lot of explosive plays within them. ODU enters this game 12th in the nation in yards per play on offense. The defense has also been very stout, allowing just 4.79 yards per play this season. The Monarchs were clearly the second-best team in the Sun Belt, but because they were in the East Division with James Madison, they had no shot at playing in the conference title game.
Old Dominion vs. South Florida Cure Bowl Prediction
In USF’s nine wins, they held opponents to 2.94 yards per carry. In their three losses (Miami, Memphis, Navy), the Bulls allowed 5.38 yards per carry. Moore is a huge unknown on the offensive side and that could put the defense into a tough spot, given that Old Dominion runs the ball at a high rate and that’s really what Henicle was recruited to do. There’s also more stability right now within the ODU program. South Florida was also in the College Football Playoff mix for a decent chunk of the season. This is not the bowl game that they want to be in, while ODU hasn’t won a bowl game since 2016.
Pick: Old Dominion +3.5
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