South Alabama vs. Western Michigan:

The bowl season officially gets underway on Saturday December 14 with the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. The South Alabama Jaguars will have a de facto home-field advantage over the Western Michigan Broncos, as the boys from Mobile and their fans have a 2.5-hour ride northeast from the Gulf Shore to the middle of the state.

We’ve seen some really interesting line movement on this game, so that is one of the many talking points for this kickoff to the postseason.

 

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South Alabama Jaguars (-8, 57.5) vs. Western Michigan Broncos

Saturday Dec. 14, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)

This is a late game on Sunday, as the Celebration Bowl battle between Jackson State and South Carolina State begins the day and Army-Navy follows in the standalone 3 p.m. ET spotlight. South Alabama was as high as a 10-point favorite at open and we saw this line get hit on Tuesday down to as low as -7 before settling in at -8.

South Alabama QB Gio Lopez tweeted a NSFW clip from Wolf of Wall Street to announce that he wasn’t going anywhere and that pushed the line back up to that -8 number. Lopez had an 18/5 TD/INT ratio and threw for over 2,500 yards. Under first-year head coach Major Applewhite, this offense did shine, accumulating 5.6 yards per carry en route to finishing eighth in the nation in yards per play.

Applewhite was a major-conference OC and the head coach at Houston, so offensive prowess from the Jags was not only the expectation, but likely to be the saving grace after head coach Kane Wommack left to be Alabama’s DC and DC Corey Batoon took the same position at Missouri. As it turned out, South Alabama went 6-6 with a top-10 offense, finishing 85th in yards per play allowed.

So, we’ll see if Western Michigan can move the ball on that porous unit. The Broncos dropped three of four down the stretch and got bowl-eligible in the final game against rival Eastern Michigan. The Broncos averaged a hair over six yards per play, but mustered just 4.9 YPP in four November games after stepping up in class a bit in the conference.

QB Hayden Wolff posted a 17/7 TD/INT ratio and a career-best 67% completion rate in what will be his final season of college football. The fifth-year senior and two-year starter at WMU began his collegiate career at Old Dominion and lost 27-20 to a 10-2 South Alabama team to finish the 2022 season.

Western Michigan ranks in the 110s in yards per play on defense – an expected result given Ohio State and Wisconsin in non-conference action, but they still allowed nearly as many YPP (6.20) against MAC foes as they did against non-conference opponents (6.24). The top offense in the MAC finished 42nd in YPP and the Broncos didn’t even face that Ohio team. Miami was second and the Broncos didn’t face them either.

The Broncos themselves were third and Bowling Green was fourth, all the way down at 71st. WMU lost that game 31-13 and gave up 6.8 yards per carry.

With Lopez back, I’m guessing he’s excited about the bowl game and where the team is going. A motivated South Alabama team should win comfortably here.

Pick: South Alabama -8

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