The Georgia Bulldogs are in a much different spot than usual this season as their bowl game approaches. Instead of being disappointed about missing out on the College Football Playoff because of a loss in the SEC Championship Game, they weren’t even a contender because of earlier losses to Florida and Alabama.
Perhaps that is a reason why you’re forced to take -7.5 if you like the Bulldogs in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl against the Cincinnati Bearcats. Though the Bearcats haven’t lost a game, this line, even with some Georgia opt-outs, has spent most of its time sitting on 7 or above and Thursday’s tipping point added the hook market-wide. We’re looking at -7.5 and a total of 52 at BetOnline Sportsbook.
We’ll break down both sides of this matchup and see if we can’t find an edge one way or the other for the first game of the New Year.
Cincinnati Bearcats
The Cincinnati Bearcats wanted to believe that they had a chance to be in the College Football Playoff. It’s all about dollars when it comes to the big ratings from those National Semifinal games, so it didn’t even matter that the Bearcats went 9-0. To be fair, the odds are extremely long to make it as a Group of Five team, simply because the strength of schedule does pass the sniff test. It rings true in this game. Cincinnati has had an excellent season and can’t really help the conference or the schedule, but the SOS per Jeff Sagarin ranks 90th. Georgia’s on the other hand, ranks seventh. A lot of people will look at that as a negative for the Bearcats here and it’s hard to do anything other than that. There is a talent disparity here. There is no coaching disparity, as Luke Fickell has done a phenomenal job in the Queen City and defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman is sitting on a head coaching job at some point. It could even be here if Fickell jumps for a bigger gig. While the strength of schedule leaves something to be desired, Cincinnati did outgain the opposition 6.87 to 4.32 from a yards per play standpoint. Cincinnati’s defense wound up with the best yards per play against on defense. They only allowed 3.3 yards per carry on the ground and opponents only completed 51.3% of their passes. Bad schedule or not, those are dominant numbers. There were a lot of questions about the Cincinnati offense coming into the season, but Desmond Ridder improved from his first year as a starter to post a 17/6 TD/INT ratio with a 66.4% completion percentage. Ridder also ran for 7.3 yards per carry on 83 rushing attempts. Cincinnati dominated opponents on the ground with 5.7 yards per play. The question here is whether or not UC can have that measure of success against a SEC defense.CLAIM YOUR WELCOME BONUS FROM BETONLINE SPORTSBOOK