Free Picks: Premium Service Plays for Friday, January 7,2011

Dr. Bob

Strong Opinion

LSU (-1.5) 27 Texas A&M 21 (at Cotton Bowl)

LSU started the season with 7 wins before fading with a 3-2 finish and entering this game with a 5-7 ATS record. Texas A&M, meanwhile, started 3-3 but ended with 6 consecutive wins and spread wins and I was on the Aggies as a Best Bet in 3 of those wins. While you’d think that I would continue to ride the Aggies, I am forced to side with the under-achieving Tigers based on a negative 2-26-1 ATS subset of a 12-48-1 ATS bowl situation that applies to Texas A&M and is based on their strong finish to the season. LSU, meanwhile, applies to a 44-15-2 ATS bowl situation that is based on their regular season ending loss at Arkansas.

LSU’s only two losses this year were both on the road by 8 points or less to #1 ranked Auburn and #8 Arkansas and the Tigers beat Alabama, so they can certainly compete with any team in the nation despite having inconsistent quarterback play, which is the only component that kept LSU from being an elite team this season. The Tigers can run the ball with Stevan Ridley leading the way with 1042 yards at 4.6 ypr and Ridley has been cleared to play after earlier being listed as questionable with academic issues. The Tigers’ top quarterback Jordan Jefferson can also run and LSU averaged 194 ground yards per game at 5.1 yards per rushing play despite facing teams that would combine to allow just 4.6 yprp to an average team. The LSU quarterbacks, however, really struggled with inconsistency and were downright horrible in numerous games. Jefferson averaged just 5.6 yards per pass play (against teams that would allow 5.7 yppp to an average quarterback) while backup Jarrett Lee averaged only 5.4 yppp (against teams that would allow 6.1 yppp). After Jefferson’s horrible start to the season Lee was brought in to split snaps, but Jefferson’s play was better down the stretch and he got a large majority of the playing time over the last couple of games. What’s odd about LSU’s pass attack is that it was actually better against good teams than against bad teams. The Tigers averaged just 4.8 yppp against Vanderbilt’s mediocre pass defense, averaged only 3.2 yppp against Division 1AA McNeese State, and 3.3 yppp against lowly UL Monroe and their bad defense. By contrast, LSU averaged 9.0 yppp against Florida’s very strong pass defense and the Tigers averaged 9.3 yppp against Alabama’s strong pass defense. The correlation between LSU’s yards per pass play and thee strength of the opposing pass defense is actually negative, meaning that the trend is for the Tigers to throw for a better yards per pass play the better the opposing defense is. I’ll come back to that point later. Overall, LSU is just 0.1 yards per play better than an average Division 1A team, as they gained 5.3 yppl against teams that would allow 5.2 yppl to an average team.

Texas A&M is good defensively against both the run (4.3 yprp allowed to teams that would combine to average 5.0 yprp) and against the pass (5.1 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would combine to average 6.5 yppp against an average team) and the Aggies are a very good 1.0 yppl better than average overall defensively. My math model projects just 320 total yards at 4.6 yppl for LSU in this game without factoring in their habit of throwing the ball better (relatively) against better defensive teams.

LSU also has a strong defense, as the Tigers yielded just 4.9 yppl to a schedule of teams that would average 5.8 yppl against an average stop unit. Texas A&M finished the season at 0.4 yppl better than average offensively (5.7 yppl against teams that would allow 5.3 yppl to an average attack), but the Aggies are considerably better now than they were earlier in the season. Incumbent starting quarterback Jerrod Johnson didn’t play nearly as well as he did last season and he was replaced at mid-season by Ryan Tannehill, who ignited the pass attack with 65% completions (57% for Johnson) and just 3 interceptions on 199 passes compared to 9 picks on 279 passes for Johnson. Tannehill averaged 6.5 yppp against teams that would allow 5.9 yppp to an average quarterback while Johnson was 0.3 yppp worse than average. The A&M rushing attack is also better now, as Cyrus Gray has run for an average of 140 yards at 6.4 ypr in 6 games since taking over for the injured Christine Michael. The Aggies’ attack is 0.8 yppl better than average with Gray at tailback and Tannehill at quarterback, but that attack was slowed to 5.0 yppl and 16.5 points in their final two games by good defensive teams Nebraska and Texas while Tannehill’s numbers were inflated against the bad pass defenses of Kansas, Texas Tech, and Baylor. Tannehill averaged 8.2 yppp against those 3 teams, who would combine to allow 6.7 yppp to an average quarterback, and he was average in 3 games against good defensive teams. In games against Tannehill averaged just 4.6 yppp against Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas – teams that would combine to allow 4.6 yppp to an average quarterback. The question is whether that difference in Tannehill’s level of relative performance is random or an indication that he really is not as good as his overall stats suggest. I’ll get back to that later. Based on Tannehill’s overall level of play the Aggies are expected to produce 368 yards at 5.4 yppl.

While Texas A&M does have an advantage from the line of scrimmage the Tigers have a huge edge in special teams thanks to All-American CB Patrick Patterson, who also ranks in the top 10 nationally in both kick and punt returns. In a tight game in which neither team is expected to move the ball easily, field position become even more important and was the reason that the Tigers were able to stay in so many close games despite being out-played from the line of scrimmage. Overall the math picks this game even but LSU’s pass attack was relatively better against good defensive teams while A&M’s Tannehill was relatively worse against good defensive teams (average compared to +0.6 yppp overall). If Tannehill really is just average when faced with a good pass defense than A&M’s offense would be 1.3 points worse. If I adjust LSU’s projected pass numbers to reflect their lack of correlation between their performance and the level of defense faced then the Tigers would be 1.4 points better. That would result in LSU by 2.7 points. So, the fair line is somewhere between pick and LSU by 2.7 points – so the line is pretty fair. The situation is strongly in favor of LSU and I’ll consider LSU a Strong Opinion at -2 ½ points or less and I’d play LSU as a 2-Star Best Bet if they become an underdog. My math projects 48 ½ points and the total is 49 points, so I have no opinion on the total.