2018 Military Bowl ACC v AAC
The 2018 Military Bowl is an interesting clash between a very good Group of Five Cinncinati up against an also-ran Power Five one in the shape of Virginia Tech who limped into Bowl eligibility by winning their last two games. Having said that this is VT’s26th Consecutive bowl season and they beat a pretty good Marshall side to clinch the place. If experience counts for anything they will give a good account of themselves.
Virginia Tech ended up a disappointing 5th in the weaker ACC Coastal division at 6-6 and only managed 3 conference wins, but these did include rivals, Virginia and Duke – both of whom went on to win their respective Bowl games. Their only bad loss was to Old Dominion a loss which pretty much put pay to any hopes VT had of ranking in the top 25 (they were quite fancied preseason). Their other losses included to Notre Dame – which looks less forgivable after NDs capitulation in the playoffs – but is never the less probably better than some of Cincinnati’s wins.
Cincinnati is one of the surprise teams of the year finishing 10-2 and although we are hard pushed to point to an amazing win, they did beat Bowl Winners Tulane & Ohio. Their two losses came against Temple – who were soundly beaten by Duke in the above mentioned Bowl, and UCF who went undefeated again on their way to The Fiesta Bowl as the Group of Five “At Large” team.
Statistics-wise Cincinnati looks much better having run the ball very well on their way to having the 24th Ranked Offence, Defensively they ranked 8th – having only given up 103.8 yards rushing per game. However, this was helped by having a fairly easy schedule and had they played in the ACC these numbers would look a whole lot different. They did play a power-five team but it was 3-9 UCLA and some of the wins were against pretty bad sides including 1-11 UConn.
Virginia Tech Like to pass the ball and ended up ranked 40th in this category so measure up a little better than the stats would indicate.
The oddsmakers have Cincinnati 5.5 point favourites, which we think is a stretch. We can’t see them winning by six and don’t think they will win straight up either.
Our prediction is for Virginia Tech to edge this one 28-24, maintaining the ACC’s great Bowl season.
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