2018 Music City Bowl SEC v Big 10
The 2018 Music City Bowl looks like being a good old quarterback shootout with Auburn’s Jarrett Stidham keen to prove he is the player everyone thought he was up against David Blough who has been one of the most improved QBs this season, boasting a 151.8 rating. However Purdue’s schedule certainly helped here.
Auburn were a pre-season dark horse for the National Championship in some people’s books (we had them at 12 in our preseason rank) and although they will be a bit disappointed with their 7-5 finish, it is hard to find too much fault in their defeats. A 1 point loss at home to LSU thanks to a last-second field goal and losses at Miss State, Georgia & Alabama can be forgiven, leaving only that headscratcher against Tennessee, where they gave up 3 turnovers.
Wins wise that early one over Rose Bowl bound Washington still stands out and beating Texas A&M who ended up ranked 20 in the CFP rankings was not too shabby either. Their other wins were ok too and in our opinion, if they had played Purdue’s schedule they would be around 10 wins.
Purdue have been up and down this season – losing their opening three games, then going on a four-win streak which included wins against Boston College and Ohio State! They then lost 3 out of five limping into bowl eligibility with a final game win against Indiana. Had they been playing a Group of Five team we might have given them a chance but up against an SEC team, we can’t see how they can win. David Blough will probably spend quite a bit of the night running for his life and although the spread is only 3 points we think it should be closer to 10.
Hopefully, we will see plenty of points but we don’t see this one being close.
Our prediction is for Auburn to win 45-21
For those who like to keep track of these things, we are 9-10 so far in our predictions – not too good :(.
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