BROTHER
MIAMI BEACH BOWL
Western Kentucky (11-2) vs. South Florida (8-4)
The Miami Beach Bowl was one of the best games of last year’s Bowl season with Memphis defeating BYU in 2OT 55-48. The game was also notable for the fight at the end that marred the game between the Cougars and Tigers. It was unfortunate that happened because the game was tremendous and had a lot of everything. BYU threw a pick deep in Memphis territory to end the game. Memphis kicked a 55-yard field goal to force double over time, and both quarterbacks threw for over 300 yards.
The 2015 Miami Beach Bowl has a chance to be a great game as well and I really like this match-up. Western Kentucky came into this season with very high expectations and at the very least matched them and probably exceeded them. They have two losses, both to bowl teams from power conferences in Indiana and LSU. They absolutely dominated in the Conference USA with only three of their games being decided by less than 20 points. The least amount of points they scored in conference play was 35. This team is explosive and I am expecting to see a shootout in this game.
No one coming into this year thought the South Florida Bulls had 8-4 talent. They would no doubt be improved from last year’s 4-8 team but they had one of the more unappreciated turnaround’s of college football this year. They lost to Maryland by 18 which is a bad loss, but besides that lost by a touchdown to Memphis and at Navy by 12, in addition to a loss against a good Florida State team. They have played particularly good as of late, after starting 1-3, they’ve finished 7-1.
Western Kentucky is led by their tremendous quarterback Brandon Doughty who threw for 45 touchdown passes this year. He had one of the best performances of last year’s bowl season throwing for five first half touchdowns and close to 500 yards in the game. The Hilltoppers were involved in probably the greatest game of last year’s bowl season, the inaugural Bahamas Bowl, against the Central Michigan Chippewas, where Western Kentucky nearly blew a 49-14 fourth quarter lead. Down 49-42, Central Michigan pulled of this miracle play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJnNrFtKuDU The Chippewas missed the 2-point conversion and lost 49-48.
The Hilltoppers have the 4th ranked scoring offense. Their defense for how explosive a team they are is a bit underrated as they will give up some yards, but they are second nationally with 31 takeaways. Leon Allen was hurt very early on this season at running back, but Anthony Wales has done a good job in his place running for about a 1,000 yards and 7 touchdowns. D’Andre Ferby has also ran for 600 yards and 11 touchdowns. Taywan Taylor has had a great year for Western Kentucky with 1,363 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns.
An interesting theme of this game is Willie Taggart, the South Florida coach, left Western Kentucky to coach the Bulls. He recruited a good amount of players on the Hilltoppers, including Doughty. Thanks to their finish, he was recently given a five year contract extension and the pressure is off him a bit thanks to their turnaround after the last couple of dismal seasons. The reason why I like this game a lot is the big contrast in styles. Western Kentucky likes to score a ton of points and the Bulls will want to control the clock, run the ball and play tough defense. The Bulls are 11th nationally at 243 yards per game. They are led by Marlon Mack who has 1,273 rushing yards and 8 touchdowns. Their quarterback Quinton Flowers can also run a good deal as he has 883 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns. Flowers has also thrown for 21 touchdowns to 8 interceptions. Their defense will be a major problem for Western Kentucky and they have some good athletes, definitely of higher quality than the Hilltoppers are used to seeing. Deatrick Nichols, a cornerback was first team All AAC, and Eric Lee (DL) and Auggie Sanchez (LB) were second team All AAC. They also have had a much better recruiting class as of late than Western Kentucky.
I have a hard time seeing this game being anything other than a shootout, yes South Florida’s defense is good, but Doughty is seasoned enough to make some big plays and that’s how good the Hilltoppers offense is. Also South Florida with Mack and Flowers will have a lot of big plays of their own and I don’t see Western Kentucky stopping them too much on offense. This will be a fun game, but overall I feel this is a great mild upset pick and I would take South Florida getting the 2 or 3 points. They have the better athletes. They have a tough defense that will contain Western Kentucky a little more than these Conference-USA teams have. They’ve been playing great football as of late and if you’re looking at WKU’s games against power teams, they hung around for a while before the big boys held on at the end. A team with a defense like LSU was just too much for the Hilltoppers in the second half and I think they’re going to have a hard time again here.
Final Score: South Florida 38, Western Kentucky 31
The major difference with these team is that W Kentucky has the offense that can come from behind if early turnovers or special teams cause S Florida to get ahead early. If S Florida gets behind I'm not so confident they can play catch up. With the line basically a pik em again I just see too much value in W Kentucky.
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