Ohio vs. Jacksonville State Prediction: Cure Bowl College Football Picks

Ohio vs. Jacksonville State:

The Ohio Bobcats have reached their ultimate goal for the 2024 season. They won the MAC Championship outright for the first time since 1968, breaking a five-game losing streak in the conference championship game. A few hours later, it was announced that their head coach Tim Albin would take the same position at Charlotte.

On Wednesday morning, approximately 48 hours before the StaffDNA Cure Bowl, interim head coach and offensive coordinator Brian Smith was officially promoted and the interim title was removed. So the Bobcats have their coach, but the Jacksonville State Gamecocks don’t. Rich Rodriguez is back in Morgantown for a second run with West Virginia. Offensive coordinator and QB coach Rod Smith will serve as interim.

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That means we have a lot to unpack for this bowl game on Friday, December 20th in Orlando.

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Cure Bowl: Ohio Bobcats (-3.5, 54.5) vs. Jacksonville State Gamecocks

Friday, December 20th, 12pm ET

Although Albin announced his intention to leave, the players did not do so. At a time when many players are literally and figuratively leaving for greener pastures, there is no transfer portal presence in Ohio. Jacksonville State has several guys with RichRod’s departure.

Most of Jacksonville State’s portal considerations involve guys on the defensive side of the ball. This wasn’t a particularly good defense to begin with, as the Gamecocks ranked 66th with 5.51 yards per play. Ohio, on the other hand, was a top-20 defense in that department. I think you could have a good debate about which conference is better between the MAC and Conference USA, but Jeff Sagarin’s ratings found the MAC rated about two points higher than the C-USA.

However, Ohio’s strength of schedule ranked 131st. Jacksonville State was ranked 136th as they played the only top 30 team (Louisville) between the two. In many ways I think these teams look equal on the surface.

Gamecocks QB Tyler Huff had a little more time to rest from an ankle injury he suffered in the regular season finale. In the C-USA championship game, he didn’t appear to be injured at all as he was 11 of 15 through the air for 176 yards and two touchdowns and also had 167 rushing yards and a touchdown. Huff is actually approaching 3,500 total yards this season and has scored 27 touchdowns.

Parker Navarro is similar, but the interceptions associated with his stat line stand out a bit. Navarro has passed for more than 3,000 total yards, including 2,169 through the air and 943 on the ground. He has also scored 27 total touchdowns, but his ten interceptions surpass Huff’s six. However, Navarro had three of them in a surprisingly poor performance against Morgan State in September, and that outlier data point is the difference.

Navarro doesn’t have to worry about Jacksonville State’s top three defensive players as Zechariah Poyser (Miami), Reginald Hughes (Colorado) and Fred Perry (TBD) have all left the program. The Gamecocks may need to replace both starting safeties and both starting corners for this game.

But I think Huff will maintain his commitment to Jax State’s offense in his final college game. Therefore, my favorite bet in this game is Over 54.5 as opposed to looking at a side.

Selection: Over 54.5