2018 Independence Bowl AAC v ACC
The 2018 Independence Bowl gives the AAC another crack at a Power Five team, this time in the shape of Duke, who despite some recent success is still very much a Basketball School. The AAC is 1-3 so far in bowl games and has already lost their initial clash with an ACC team when Wake Forest rallied past Memphis in the Birmingham Bowl. If this one is as exciting it will be a great start to the night.
Results wise Temple have a slight edge having finished 8-4 as opposed to Duke at 7-, with Temples best win being against 20 ranked Cincinnati and they finished the season well with 6 wins out of 7. One of their early losses was to FCS Villanova which was not good, but their other losses are somewhat more credible Buffalo, Boston College and unbeaten UCF.
Duke, by comparison, started the season really well beating Army and Northwestern – both of whom went on to have their best seasons in a while and they also have a nice win at Miami on their resume. They may have lost their last two games but one was to Clemson who are in the playoffs and that final game against Wake doesn’t look quite as bad following their aforementioned Bowl win.
This one is hard to call but Duke has had better wins and slightly more credible losses and despite their disappointing end to the regular season, we think they can upset the odds (Temple are 3.5 points favourites) and make it 2-0 to the ACC against the American.
Our prediction is for Duke to win 24-17
For those who like to keep track of these things, we are 8-8 so far in our predictions.
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