CFB · PREVIEWS · COLLEGE-FOOTBALL · SUN-BELT · SOUTH-ALABAMA · MARSHALL
South Alabama Scores On Everybody and Gets Scored On by Everybody. Tuesday Night in Huntington Should Be Fun.
By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·
South Alabama scores on everybody. South Alabama gets scored on by everybody. That's the whole scouting report, and it's why a Tuesday night in Huntington between two teams sitting in the bottom third of SP+ is going to be a blast.
The Jaguars are 7th in FBS in scoring and dead last, 138th of 138, in defensive EPA per play. They're unbeaten in Sun Belt play anyway, which tells you how this offense has been bailing out that defense. Marshall is still looking for its first conference win and walks in off a home loss where the starting quarterback threw three picks and got pulled.
Kickoff is 7:30 ET at Joan C. Edwards Stadium. Clear the evening, it's a midweek Sun Belt game and those never end quietly.
South Alabama: All Gas, No Brakes
The Jaguars put up 38.8 a game, and they do it on the ground. South Alabama runs for 220.3 yards a game, 11th in FBS, and the two wins that carry the record were a 41-36 over Ohio and a 56-49 over Arkansas State. Neither of those teams is anyone's idea of a defense, but 56 is 56.
Then you flip to the other side of the ball and it's a crime scene. South Alabama gives up 34.5 a game and 5.8 yards a carry, and by EPA per play allowed it is the worst defense in the country, 138th of 138. The success rate allowed is 51%, meaning more than half the plays run against this group are a win for the offense.
So how is this team 4-2 and clean in the league? Turnovers. South Alabama is +8 in turnover margin, 7th in FBS, and that is the whole trick. When you can't stop anybody, the only way to win is to take the ball away and let the offense keep the score climbing. The losses, 24-28 to Tulane and 21-45 to Kentucky, are what it looks like when the takeaways don't show up.
In my sims the offense runs through Jared Hollins at a median 224 passing yards, with PJ Martin at 52 rushing yards and Keenan Phillips at 42 behind him. It's a committee on the ground and the committee works.
Marshall: Who's Throwing It, and Who's Catching It?
Marshall is 3-3, and the two wins were squeakers over Missouri State, 30-24, and Middle Tennessee, 28-26. The losses were a 45-0 at Penn State, a 45-17 to James Madison, and the one that stings, a 27-21 home loss to Coastal Carolina.
That Coastal game is the whole story for the Herd. Carlos Del Rio-Wilson went 2-of-6 for 37 yards with three interceptions and got pulled. Zion Turner came in and threw two touchdowns. Tony Gibson said afterward that no job is secure, and I'm not going to tell you who trots out first on Tuesday because he hasn't told anyone either.
The ball security problem isn't a one-game thing. Marshall sits at -9 in turnover margin, 133rd in FBS, and that is the number to stare at when you remember who's coming to town. South Alabama lives on takeaways. Marshall hands them out.
The offense scores 22.0 a game, 111th in FBS, so it isn't built to win a shootout. My sims run Del Rio-Wilson at a median 212 passing yards and TJ Lester at 48 on the ground, which is a fine night for a team that has to keep the game close and boring, and not nearly enough if it becomes an Arkansas State special.
The Whole Game: South Alabama's Run Game vs Marshall's Run D
South Alabama runs for 220.3 a game. Marshall allows 193.8 a game at 5.5 a carry, 128th in FBS. If you're a Herd fan you already know where this is going.
My sims agree it's the ballgame. When South Alabama wins, it rushes for 204. When it loses, 145. Same story on the other sideline: Marshall runs for 220 in the sims it wins and 151 in the ones it loses.
That isn't a coincidence, it's two bad run defenses on the same field. Whoever gets the ground game going gets to keep the other offense standing on the sideline, and with South Alabama's defense that's the only way Marshall keeps the score in the 20s.
The matchup to watch is Marshall's front seven in the first quarter. If Martin and Phillips are getting 6 a pop early, the Jaguars will have the Herd offense chasing, and a chasing Marshall offense is the one that threw three picks against Coastal.
How My Sims See It
Marshall wins 61% of 10,000 sims, with a median score of Marshall 30, South Alabama 24. The middle half of outcomes runs from a 7-point Marshall loss to a 14-point Marshall win, so this is a lean, not a verdict.
What separates the Marshall wins from the losses is the thing you'd guess. In the sims Marshall wins, it turns the ball over 0.7 times. In the sims South Alabama wins, 1.5. One extra giveaway against a team that's +8 on the year is the difference between a comfortable home win and a Coastal rerun.
The other piece is possession. Marshall gets about 4.5 red-zone trips in its wins and 3.3 in its losses, and it gets there by running the ball and keeping the clock moving. The version where South Alabama wins looks like the Ohio game: the Jaguars ripping off chunk runs, the Herd forced to throw to keep up, and the throw going the wrong way.
Bottom Line: Two Bottom-Third Teams, One Home Field
South Alabama sits 116th in SP+ and Marshall 121st, so nobody is confusing this for a quality matchup. What tips it is the home field and the fact that South Alabama's defense can't stop a run game that's otherwise pretty ordinary. Marshall doesn't need to be good on Tuesday, it needs to be careful.
The counterpoint is fair: the Jaguars have already scored 56 in a conference game this year and the Herd quarterback room is a coin flip. If the turnovers show up again, the 61% means nothing.
I'm leaning Marshall, and honestly that lean is getting harder to resist the longer I look at it. I'll be on the couch for this one, and I'm expecting a good time. Two defenses this bad on the same field on a Tuesday night is exactly the kind of game I started running sims to understand in the first place.