View the complete 2022-2023 bowl game schedule here
LendingTree Bowl in Mobile, AL
When: Saturday, December 17 at 5:45 pm ET
TV: ESPN
Southern Miss Golden Eagles (6-6) vs. Rice Owl (5-7)
Every year there's a "worst bowl" usually on one of the first few days, featuring the teams with the worst records. The Eagles vs. the Owls? This one's for the birds.
Vegas line/spread: Southern Miss by 6 1/2 (over/under 45.5)
The Eagles are a solid touchdown favorite to win a pretty low-scoring game. Line is down from 7 early on, o/u down from 46.5.
Strength power rating: #103 Southern Miss 28, #141 Rice 21
Best/Worst removed: Southern Miss 27-21
Turnover corrected: Southern Miss 26-23
The Strength power rating agrees with the 7 point spread for the average game. But Rice has suffered a worse turnover margin than almost anyone, and it's made them look worse than they are. Corrected for that, they're only a 3 point underdog in our power rating.
| Game-comparisons | win % | vs. -7 Spread |
| Southern Miss | 56% | 44% |
| Rice | 44% | 56% |
An interesting result in the game-comparison metric. It makes sense that Southern Miss wins the majority of game comparisons when they are a 7 point favorite in our power rating. But when we want to see if they beat a 7-point spread, you'd think that would be a 50/50 result—since our power rating essentially agrees with the spread. But no, now Rice is a 56% favorite to beat the 7 point spread. In fact, the teams are 50/50 against a 4 point spread instead. What this means is that the average win by Southern Miss is 7 points, but some very large wins are skewing the average (mean), while the median is around 4 points. We'll look at the charts later and see why this happens (hint: both teams are very unpredictable and their game ratings are all over the place).
When Southern Miss has the ball
| Southern Miss scoring offense(adj): #115 |
Rice scoring defense(adj): #119 |
| Southern Miss rushing offense(raw): #105 |
Rice rushing defense(raw): #91 |
| Southern Miss passing offense(raw): #96 | Rice passing defense(raw): #44 |
In the worst bowl game, this is the worst scenario: Southern Miss has the ball, their #115 offense playing against Rice's #119 defense. At least it's an even matchup, so it might be just as entertaining as Georgia vs. Ohio State in that respect, but you won't be seeing high-level football on either side of the line of scrimmage. The raw rush/pass comparisons are fairly valid since the teams play comparable schedules, and they suggest that moving the ball won't be that easy for Southern Miss.
When Rice has the ball
| Rice scoring offense(adj): #112 |
Southern Miss scoring defense(adj): #68 |
| Rice rushing offense(raw): #76 |
Southern Miss rushing defense(raw): #46 |
| Rice passing offense(raw): #71 | Southern Miss passing defense(raw): #74 |
Rice doesn't have a great offense either, it's about equal to the Golden Eagle offense. But Southern Miss actually has a pretty decent defense, so the Owls are going to have trouble scoring. Their best bet seems to be through the air, but again those are raw numbers unadjusted for opposition. The scoring numbers tell a better story and that doesn't look good for Rice.
Special Teams Rank (per ESPN FPI): Southern Miss: #26 Rice: #105
Quite a discrepancy here, and it does explain Southern Miss's good scoring defense numbers, as good special teams has a lot to do with starting field position for your opponent. Rice's rank also explains how they have such a poor scoring offense while gaining a respectable number of yards—their poor punting forces them into longer drives, and poor field goal kicking leaves some drives scoreless.
Southern Miss's season (6-6) • SOS: #117
Non-conf losses: 2 • Home losses: 3
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 2-4
Record vs. top 25 teams: 1-1
- Liberty 27-29 4OT
- @Miami FL 7-30
- Northwestern St 62-10
- @#16 Tulane 27-24
- @#24 Troy 10-27
- Arkansas St 20-19
- @Texas State 20-14
- Louisiana-Lafayette 39-24
- Georgia St 14-42
- @Coastal Carolina 23-26
- South Alabama 20-27
- @Louisiana-Monroe 20-10
Southern Miss had an up and down year, that's for sure. It started on a down note as they lost to Liberty in four overtimes, then got blitzed by Miami, a loss that got worse in retrospect as the season progressed. The Eagles rebounded to destroy Northwestern by 52 points and then beat Tulane, a team that ended up 11-2 and ranked #16 by the Playoff Committee. At this point no one knew what to make of the Eagles.
They won three of the next four before hitting a 3-game losing skid that included a 42-14 loss to Georgia State, but luckily managed a sixth win to become bowl eligible. They've shown they're capable of beating really good teams on the road, and losing to really bad teams at home, so who can tell what they'll do in a given game. The win to reach bowl eligibility is good sign, I guess. But the two non-conference losses and three home losses are a red flag.
Rice's season (5-7) • SOS: #93
Non-conf losses: 2 • Home losses: 2
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 2-5
Record vs. top 25 teams: 0-2
- @#10 USC 14-66
- McNeese St 52-10
- UL-Lafayette 33-21
- @Houston 27-34
- UAB 28-24
- @Florida Atlantic 14-17
- @Louisiana Tech 42-41 OT
- UNC-Charlotte 23-56
- UTEP 37-30
- @Western Kentucky 10-45
- #25 UTSA 7-41
- @North Texas 17-21
Where to begin with Rice? Why not start at the first game at USC, a 66-14 obliteration, which we can probably excuse since the Trojans are a top-ten team and the game was on the road. Somehow Rice's next six games were all decent performances, especially the next four which make up their best stretch; the Owls beat two bowl teams and played Houston really close. The wheels fell off in game 8, a performance so bad it shouldn't even show up on the graph, a 56-23 home loss to Charlotte. Again, the Owls bounced back from that debacle to beat UTEP.
Needing one win in three games, the Owls lost all three, and only their APR got them into a bowl game at 5-7. To be fair all three games were against bowl-bound teams and they gave a good effort at North Texas before falling. Overall Rice played 8 decent games and 4 atrocious ones, so whether they keep this bowl game close or get blown out depends seems to be a 67:33 proposition. As we noted turnovers are a Rice problem and in those four bad games they suffered 4, 1, 6, and 3 turnovers. That suggests their worst games are due to turnovers but their very worst game was a 1-turnover game, so they're very capable of being awful even without turning the ball over.
Key Injuries / opt-outs
No major injuries at this time.
Psychology/Motivation - Some speculative factors that may come into play during the game:
- Favorite: Southern Miss is the favorite as is proper, since they don't have a losing record. There might be some chance for overconfidence from the Eagles playing against a 5-7 team.
- Location: Mobile, AL is a lot closer to Hattiesburg than it is to Houston, which seems close but is a 7 hour drive! Southern Miss can probably send a lot more fans to the venue in a 2 hour drive. We haven't added any consideration for home field since it's not in the same state but it's a close as most in-state games and could be worth about a point on average.
- Coaching: No change.
- Motivation: Hard to say here. Southern Miss got a clutch win to make a bowl game, and it's pretty close to home, but are they enthused? And Rice backed into the game for which they should be grateful, but are they excited about it? They are going to their first bowl since 2014 which is something, and Southern Miss missed the last two bowl seasons as well. Still, it's hard to think either team is really that motivated, but also hard to see a big advantage on either side.
- Momentum: Rice definitely has some negative momentum going on with losing three straight at the end—at least Southern Miss broke their losing skid. Rice did improve on last year (by 1 game) while Southern Miss is 3 wins better than last year's 3-9.
Both teams went from a no-bowl 2021 to a bowl game, regardless of how they got here. Southern Miss has a bit of a home field edge from crowd support possibly. And the Eagles have the edge in momentum, having won their last game while Rice ended on a 3-game skid.
Final analysis
The turnover issue is one to contemplate. Rice has a terrible turnover margin. Is that just bad luck, or because they're not a very good team? Statistics show that the former is most of the equation—turnovers are just luck. Clearly there are times when it comes down to a QB who throws very few picks, but even that's hard to predict for a given game. Fumbles and their recoveries are very random. If you think Rice is going to have their normal bad luck this game, then a 7-point spread is appropriate, but if they don't have their normal rate of bad luck, a closer outcome is more likely. That's without going into any other aspects of the game, of course, but it's a starting point: either 7 points, or just 3 points.
It's also interesting that game-by-game, a 4 point spread is the "median" result. The average (or mean) result is 7 points, and that's what you look at when comparing teams for a rating system, but on a given game you want to know how often is the spread going to be above or below a certain number. Despite the 7 point average, for these two teams the median is 4 points, due as we saw to their outlier games bloating the mean average.
5-7 teams have made bowl games six times since 2015, and their record is 4-2 which suggests they overperform, or are taken lightly by their opponent. But in 3 of the 4 wins our power rating made the team the favorite. The only upset was 5-7 Nebraska beating 8-4 UCLA 37-29 in 2015. So there's no reason to give special consideration, positive or negative, to a 5-7 team being in a bowl game.
We're going to assume Rice doesn't have one of its horrid games. If they do they'll lose by four touchdowns, and that's about a 1 in 3 chance. By taking the 2 in 3 chance, we're reducing the expected margin to about 4 points, which is on our 50/50 line for game comparisons. It also jibes with the turnover-exclusion forecast with an extra point added for Southern Miss playing close to home. Bottom line, if Rice keeps the turnovers under control, they keep it close and have a shot at winning. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, Southern Miss should still be the favorite here.
Prediction: Southern Miss 27, Rice 23
More previews, odds, and predictions: View the complete 2022-2023 bowl game schedule.
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