The Celebration Bowl pins the MEAC champ against the winner of the SWAC title game, meaning it’ll be the North Carolina Central Eagles squaring off against the Grambling State Tigers on Saturday afternoon. Both teams just missed out on the inaugural Celebration Bowl a year ago. After 18 straight regular season wins and a SWAC title game victory, Grambling will look to keep the good times rolling, but the Eagles won’t be an easy opponent as they lost just two games all season and are looking to put an exclamation point on a successful campaign.
This second annual Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl contest will go down Saturday, December 17, 2016, at 12 p.m. ET at the Georgia Dome.
Odds Analysis
We don’t have much historical data to use when projecting this game. These two teams last faced each other in 1985.
For a more recent look at these programs, we’ll have to examine them individually.
The Tigers will put a perfect record to the test in this bowl game while the Eagles have a couple blemishes with early season major losses to a couple larger programs in Duke and Western Michigan.
On the surface a nice winning streak spanning a couple seasons certainly places this one in Grambling’s favor, particularly since this team did show they can bounce back from failure in the SWAC championship games, coming back from a 17-0 first half deficit.
On the other side of the gridiron, the Eagles enter play having earned the MEAC title.
Matchup to Watch
This matchup is all about the quarterbacks with Devante Kincade coming off the SWAC player of the year honors for Grambling while Malcolm Bell has proven to be a dual threat QB for North Carolina Central with 2,191 passing yards and 544 more on the ground. Bell has 25 combined touchdowns; 16 in the air and nine on the ground.
Bell will have his hands full against the Grambling defense. Meanwhile, Kincade will look for a bounce back from the Alcon game where he was largely mediocre.
Alcorn State spent all of its energy trying to shutdown Kincade and was able to do a good job pressuring the QB. In the process, however, the Tigers were able to run the ball very effectively with Martez Carter netting 344 all-purpose yards.
The fact the Tigers can go to Carter and the rushing attack if North Carolina Central puts too much pressure on Kincade is a huge bonus. On the other hand, if the Eagles give Kincade some space, focusing on Carter too much, he’ll bounce back and have a standard explosive performance.
Key Stat
Grambling is absolutely destroying the competition in the third-down situations on both sides of the ball.
The Tigers are converting nearly half of their changes at a very impressive 49.22-percent clip while limiting the opposition to a meager 27.56 percent conversion rate on third downs. That’s allowed the G-Men to win the first down battle 245 to 174 and has led to them outscoring their opponents by 24.5 points per game.
The Eagles, by comparison, are only converting 37.86-percent of their third down chances. While North Carolina Central has done much better defensively, they still don’t live up to Grambling, allowing the opposition to covert 34.34-percent of the time.
Compared to the Eagles, the Tigers also win the penalty battle. They typically get hit with a few more penalty yards than the opposition with a total of just under six yards per game difference. North Carolina Central, however, has been hit with 1,006 penalty yards compared to just 781 for the opposition. That’s more than a 20-yards per game difference.
Free ATS Pick
This is Grambling’s second bowl appearance and 25th conference title. It’s the first ever Bowl appearance by North Carolina Central. In general, these two teams are reasonably balanced in regard to Bowl experience.
Given the quality options under center, look for this to result in plenty of points on both sides, but I look for a big game from Kincade as he sees a bit less pressure than he got in SWAC title bout with Alcorn State.
Between the strong QB and Carter on the ground along with a more fundamentally sound team, look for the Tigers to have a bit more success moving the ball and thus, come away with the victory, sustaining their perfect season with a big exclamation point at the end.
College Football Odds: Grambling State 35, North Carolina Central 26
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