On a slide at the moment, tough one last night with the early injury to McGough. Can't cap things like that. Moving on, 5-6-1 down 6.2 units. Time to turn this ship around. Iceberg straight ahead.
Alabama Birmingham +7 -110 (11 units)
Alabama-Birmingham +210 (4 units)
Alabama-Birmingham-Ohio over 57 -110 (11 units)
The outcome of this game will come down to two factors - a) turnovers and b) red zone efficiency. That's how most games are determined, but, with these two, the offenses aren't great, so field position and execution on that will play a big role. A few numbers for those who are into statistics. It's a bowl game, so you need to take regular season stats with a grain of salt, but I find some give a good purview into likelihood of reoccurrence.
Turnover Margin
This season, Ohio played five teams in the top 60 for turnover margin - UAB ranks 38th in the nation - and results were as follows
- Purdue : Lost 21-44 with a -2 turnover margin
- Central Michigan : Lost 23-26 with a -3 turnover margin
- Akron : Lost 34-37 with a -3 turnover margin
- Buffalo : Lost 24-31 with a -2 turnover margin
- Toledo : Won 38-10 with a -1 turnover margin
All told, they went 1-4 SU and 1-4 ATS assuming a line of 7. On average, they had a turnover margin of -2.2 and were outscored 28-29.6. The teams they faced had an average rank of 36.8 in turnover margin. UAB ranks 38th.
Conversely, Ohio ranks 98th in turnover margin. UAB played 8 teams below 80th in turnover margin with results below
- Middle Tenn : Won 25-23 with a +1 turnover margin
- Rice : Won 52-21 with a +3 turnover margin
- So Miss : Won 30-12 with a +1 turnover margin
- UTEP : Won 28-7 with a +2 turnover margin
- CoCar : Won 30-23 with a +3 turnover margin
- Charlotte : Lost 24-25 with a +2 turnover margin
- Ball State : Lost 31-51 with 0 turnover margin
- No Texas : Lost 43-46 with a +1 turnover margin
All told, they went 5-3 SU and 7-1 ATS assuming a line of 7. On average, they had a turnover margin of +1.6 and outscored opponents 32.8-26. The teams they faced had an average rank of 107.3 in turnover margin. Ohio ranks 98th
One strength of Ohio is their rush defense where they rank 14th. UAB ranks 45th in rushing offense, so seemingly a nice advantage for the Bobcats. But, if you dig in a little, Ohio has faced offenses with an average rushing rank of 91, which could explain why their rush defense appears to be so good. With UAB ground attack ranking 45th, it seems the disparity between who they've played and who they will be playing is pretty high.
Conversely, UAB ranks 80th against the run, but that ranking is based on playing rushing offenses that have an average rank of 68th. Again, numbers show some disparity, but not as high as what we see in the Ohio defensive numbers
Finally, red zone efficiency. UAB has clearly been much better in this regard with offensive efficiency % rank of 15 and a defensive rank the same at 15. Ohio ranks 28th in RZ offensive efficiency and 116th in defensive RZ efficiency.