View the complete 2019-2020 bowl game schedule here
Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit, MI
Time: Thursday, December 26 at 8:00pm ET
TV: ESPN
Pittsburgh Panthers (7-5) vs. Eastern Michigan Eagles (6-6)
Normally, Power 5 conference teams have worse records than Group of Five conference opponents. When there is an exception, the Power 5 team will likely be favored heavily.
Vegas line/spread: Pittsburgh by 12 1/2 (over/under 49)
Movement: The line started at 11, dipped to 10 1/2, then moved up 2 points by game day. The o/u remained steady.
Strength power rating: #64 Pittsburgh 25, #99 Eastern Michigan 19
Adjusted for turnovers: Pittsburgh 28-17
Median game rating: Pittsburgh 28-17
As expected, Pitt is a heavy favorite to beat Eastern Michigan. It's not that the Panthers are a great team, in fact, they're about average for the FBS. But Eastern Michigan is well below average, and needed an easy schedule to become bowl-eligible. Our power rating makes Pitt a 6 point favorite, quite a bit lower than the Vegas spread which is somewhat rare. We do give Eastern Michigan partial home field advantage for playing close to home in-state, so that's part of it.
Note that when we correct for turnovers, and when we use median rather than mean average Strength, we come up with an 11 point spread just like Vegas opened.
| Game-comparisons | win % | vs. -11 Spread |
| Pittsburgh | 63% | 58% |
| Eastern Michigan | 37% | 42% |
Comparing game performances, Pitt wins the majority (giving the Eagles partial HFA still), but doesn't win the majority against the original 11-point spread.
When Pittsburgh has the ball
| Pittsburgh scoring offense: #106 |
Eastern Michigan scoring defense: #106 |
| Pittsburgh total offense: #94 |
Eastern Michigan total defense: #113 |
| Pittsburgh rushing offense: #114 |
Eastern Michigan rushing defense: #92 |
| Pittsburgh passing offense: #52 |
Eastern Michigan passing defense: #120 |
If you were wondering why the over/under for this game is so low, wonder no more. Pitt, the favorite, has a deplorable offense—their defense is responsible for most of their wins, and staying close in their losses. They don't score, they don't gain yards, they can't run the ball—but they can pass fairly well. Kenny Pickett has 2,737 yards on the season, but only 10 touchdown throws (hence the #106 scoring offense). The good news for Pitt is that Eastern Michigan nearly has a bottom 10 pass defense. And the Eagles' #106 rating in scoring defense makes them the equal of Pitt on offense. This is why our score estimates for Pitt are in line with the average score in an FBS game (around 28 points).
When Eastern Michigan has the ball
| Eastern Michigan scoring offense: #92 |
Pittsburgh scoring defense: #28 |
| Eastern Michigan total offense: #88 |
Pittsburgh total defense: #11 |
| Eastern Michigan rushing offense: #123 |
Pittsburgh rushing defense: #36 |
| Eastern Michigan passing offense: #26 |
Pittsburgh passing defense: #8 |
Here's the other reason the over/under is low: Eastern Michigan has a bad offense too. Interestingly, it's arguably better than Pitt's with a better scoring offense and total offense, even after adjustment for schedule. They run the ball even worse than Pitt but pass the ball better than the Panthers. QB Mike Glass has 2,858 yards on the year and 22 TDs, and he's the team's #2 rusher as well. Pitt's defense is very solid overall and particularly against the pass, ranking #8 on a per-play, adjusted metric.
Special Teams rank (from ESPN FPI): Pittsburgh #111 Eastern Michigan #70
Games are only sometimes won with special teams, but it can happen. Here the Eagles get hope more from Pitt's low ranking than their own aptitude.
Pittsburgh's season (7-5)
Wins vs. bowl-eligible teams (3)
Wins vs. top 25 teams (0)
Losses (5) to losing teams (0)
- #24 Virginia 14-30
- Ohio U. 20-10
- @#10 Penn State 10-17
- Central Florida 35-34
- Delaware 17-14
- @Duke 33-30
- @Syracuse 27-20
- Miami FL 12-16
- @Georgia Tech 20-10
- North Carolina 34-27 OT
- @Virginia Tech 0-28
- Boston College 19-26
Pitt lost their home opener to Virginia, a team that would finish in the Playoff Committee top 25. They beat Ohio and then played their best game in a 17-10 road loss to Penn State; the very next game they got their biggest win, becoming the first team to beat UCF in a regular-season game in two years. They won five of their next six but laid an egg at Virginia Tech, getting shut out. They lost at home to B.C. to end the season 7-5 and consequently, they're playing in Detroit in December.
Eastern Michigan's season (6-6)
Wins vs. bowl-eligible teams (2)
Wins vs. top 25 teams (0)
Losses (6) to losing teams (1)
- @Coastal Carolina 30-23
- @Kentucky 17-38
- @Illinois 34-31
- Central Conn St 34-29
- @Central Michigan 16-42
- Ball St 23-29
- Western Michigan 34-27
- @Toledo 34-37 OT
- Buffalo 14-43
- @Akron 42-14
- @Northern Illinois 45-17
- Kent St 26-34
Eastern Michigan's season was up and down but in the end they did enough to get a bowl bid. The win over Illinois, at the time, was an indictment against the Fighting Illini but looks more impressive in retrospect for the Eagles. So does beating Western Michigan, and their 45-17 beatdown of Northern Illinois. On the other hand, the 42-16 loss to Central Michigan, losing at all to Ball State, and especially the 43-14 home loss to Buffalo show that the Eagles can be very, very bad at times. Even the win over Central Connecticut was lousy. Basically the Eagles played 4 good games, 6 lousy ones, and a few average ones. No one can say they don't have range!
Psychology/Motivation - Some speculative factors that may come into play during the game:
- Pittsburgh's season: +0 wins; Eastern Michigan's season: -1 win
- Pittsburgh's momentum: -1 win; Eastern Michigan's momentum: +0 wins
- Pittsburgh glad to be here? no; Eastern Michigan glad to be here: yes
- Pittsburgh time zones from home: 0; Eastern Michigan time zones from home: 0
- Pittsburgh coaching situation: unchanged; Eastern Michigan coaching situation: unchanged
It's hard to imagine Pitt really wanted to go to the Quick Lane Bowl at the beginning of the season. To be fair, expectations often change mid-season and if a team is unlikely to make it to a bowl game, then any bowl game is better than none. However, Pitt was 7-3 and had a chance to go 9-3 with an outside chance to play in the ACC championship game. Instead they lost their last two games, both winnable, and ended up here.
Eastern Michigan on the other hand was never in position to aspire to much more than playing in Detroit, which is not a bad thing when it's less than an hour from campus. At 6-6 you take what you can get, and playing near home means they'll at least have some fans there.
Final analysis
The good news for football fans who happen to catch this game (willingly or not) is that since neither team can run the ball at all, they will probably be going to the air. Pitt is a so-so passing team, but the Eagle pass defense is terrible. Eastern Michigan is a very good passing team, but they are up against a great Pitt pass defense. This gives Pitt the edge but anything can happen when teams start slinging the ball around.
It's interesting that the spread is wider than our Strength power rating predicts; we are usually out in front of the spread. But it's also interesting that when we correct for turnovers (giving credit, actually, to teams with lots of turnovers since turnovers are fairly random), or use each team's median performance, we get the same 11 point spread as Vegas does.
But given our idea that Pitt is unmotivated—and probably still overconfident, playing a MAC team with a worse record—we definitely aren't picking them against the spread. It's possible that they regroup, and if the Eagles play poorly then Pitt might blow out Eastern Michigan like three teams already did this year. But early bowl games are ruled by psychology and it would take a lot to motivate me if I were in their shoes. So it's either an upset win for the Eagles, or a narrow win for Pitt.
Pitt lost five times but no loss was to a team that was definitely worse than them. They got a couple of upsets—UCF by 1, UNC in overtime—but they pretty much played to the script. Did Eastern Michigan upset anyone? Yes, they beat Illinois, a team that proved better than Pitt (but probably wasn't at the time). They also beat Western Michigan, a team roughly equal to Pitt. Neither of those teams has the defense Pitt has, though.
That would mean Eastern Michigan was rising to the occasion, and that's not the narrative here. We think the Eagles will play a normal game (whatever that is, we can't predict) and Pitt will be somewhat subdued, but the defense will still have enough pride to keep Eastern Michigan's lame offense in check. Pitt wins a really low-scoring game by a small amount.
Prediction: Pittsburgh 16, Eastern Michigan 14
More previews, odds, and predictions: View the complete 2019-2020 bowl game schedule.
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