Armed Forces Bowl Preview

The Armed Forces Bowl will take place on 12/30 pitting Army against SMU.

Army is ranked #79 by the computer with a 6-6 record and a rating of 62.740 against a schedule strength of 60.380.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were better early than late, their worst game being against Temple and best game being against @Duke.  They are 4-7 against the spread this year and the computer is 8-4 picking their games against the spread and 10-2 picking winners in their games.



SMU is ranked #68 by the computer with a 7-6 record and a rating of 64.680 against a schedule strength of 64.512.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were very consistent other than two games, their worst game being against Houston and best game being against Washington State.  They are 5-6-1 against the spread this year and the computer is 7-5-1 picking their games against the spread and 10-3 picking winners in their games.



The teams are separated by 2 degrees through Navy and Tulane and 3 degrees a bunch of other ways as follows:

2 Army-->Navy-->SMU
2 Army-->Tulane-->SMU
3 Army-->Air_Force-->Navy-->SMU
3 Army-->Air_Force-->TCU-->SMU
3 Army-->Duke-->Navy-->SMU
3 Army-->Navy-->East_Carolina-->SMU
3 Army-->North_Texas-->Rice-->SMU
3 Army-->Notre_Dame-->Navy-->SMU
3 Army-->Notre_Dame-->Tulsa-->SMU
3 Army-->Rutgers-->Tulane-->SMU
3 Army-->Tulane-->Central_Florida-->SMU
3 Army-->Tulane-->Houston-->SMU
3 Army-->Tulane-->Marshall-->SMU
3 Army-->Tulane-->Rice-->SMU
3 Army-->Tulane-->Tulsa-->SMU
3 Army-->Tulane-->UTEP-->SMU

Both lost to Navy on the road, Army by 14 and SMU by 7, and both beat Tulane on the road, Army by 18 and SMU by 14.

The spread is SMU by 7.5 and the computer agrees but only by 1.9.  Given the games against common opponents, 7.5 does seem like a lot of points.  Here is the pick using the format from the newsletter:

 .Army                  +7.5 over *.                  SMU  1.9  5.6 0.601 0.769

Enjoy!