Cure Bowl
Pick
Tulane
vs.
Louisiana LAfayette
12/15/18
The bowl season kicks off with everyone’s favorite Cure Bowl, which takes place in Orlando at Camping World Stadium. It’s a battle between an AAC team that needed a one-point win in its regular season finale to be in this spot and the loser of the Sun Belt championship Game. Tulane, out of the AAC, was a -3 point favorite with an over/under of 59 a week before the Game.
These teams played only a couple years ago in the regular season and it was an oddly high-scoring tilt that Tulane won 41-39 at home, way over the 46.5 total. The best thing going for Tulane is that it won almost every Game it was supposed to with the home loss to SMU being its lone falter. That being the case, Louisiana-LAfayette had the much better ATS mark at 9-4 for the season, though most of its big wins came at home. When faced against a team without a good defense, the Scorewas usually pretty high. But against the better teams in the Sun Belt, Louisiana struggled to score. There should be points in this one since neither team has an above average defense with Louisiana giving up 432 yards and 33.7 points per Game compared to Tulane’s 419 yards and 27.8 points per Game.
That subpar Louisiana defense which is allowing 5.0 yards per carry and more than 200 rushing yards per contest is why the Green Wave are favored. Top running backs Darius Bradwell and Corey Dauphine are both near six yards per carry and the Wave are at 4.7 ypc with sacks included. Those two should get a heavy workload and could be what separates them in the end. Quarterback is a little murkier with Justin McMillan completing 50% of his passes since taking over halfway through the season, but he’s at least mobile and has had good Games against lesser defenses like that of Navy. As of note, Tulane fired offensive coordinator Doug Ruse so its offense could look a bit different, which may make things tougher for Louisiana to prepare.
And while Tulane’s defense isn’t elite, it’s had some good Games this year, keeping Wake Forest to 23 points, Memphis to 24 and USF to 15, among others. Sure, it hasn’t been consistent, but the possibility is there with a rush defense allowing only 3.9 yards per carry.
That’s the main issue for the Ragin’ Cajuns since their offense is in a similar mold with running backs Trey Ragas and Elijah Mitchell combining for more than 2,000 yards and 20 touchdowns. The team is averaging 5.7 yards per carry, but racking up huge numbers against weaker Sun Belt teams isn’t the hardest thing. Quarterback Andre Nunez has been a liability against better defenses as seen in the last loss to Appalachian State and he hasn’t thrown for more than 153 yards in the last five Games. If the running Game can’t get going, Louisiana could have trouble keeping up on the scoreboard and that’s the main reason they’ve lost six Games this year.
If Tulane’s rush defense shows up and the running Game can find holes between Bradwell and Dauphine, this team will be cooking. The Green Wave are 2-5 ATS in their last seven overall and 1-4 ATS in their last five on field turf. The Ragin’ Cajuns are 8-2 ATS in their last 10 overall and 4-1 ATS in their last five bowl Games.
Our Pick – Aside from the 41-39 Game these two played a couple of years ago, they also met in the 2013 Nnew Orleans Bowl, won by LA LAff 24-21.
Not only that, but as mentioned above, LA LAff is 4-1 in Bowl Games losing to Southern Miss 28-21.
So, the Rajin Cajuns come to play in Bowl Games, and why not. Bowls mean so much to all schools, especially the lesser known small schools. It’s an opportunity to recruit.
In a Game that figures to be close, we’ll side with the underdog. UL LAfayette +3