New Orleans Bowl Preview: Georgia Southern Eagles vs Sam Houston Bearkats Breakdown, Odds, and Prediction
College Football bowl season is upon us after an insane 2024 season. The craziness of the 12-team playoff gave us some incredible discourse and interesting games, but it also left us with some intriguing bowl matchups of teams we don't see all that often. I'll be previewing every bowl game for the rest of the […]
College Football bowl season is upon us after an insane 2024 season. The craziness of the 12-team playoff gave us some incredible discourse and interesting games, but it also left us with some intriguing bowl matchups of teams we don't see all that often.
I'll be previewing every bowl game for the rest of the postseason. Two very intriguing teams meet in the New Orleans Bowl this time around, with the high-flying Georgia Southern Eagles taking on the Sam Houston Bearkats.
New Orleans Bowl Preview
Who: Georgia Southern Eagles (Away), Sam Houston Bearkats (Home)
When: Thursday, December 19th; 9:00 PM ET
Channel: ESPN2
Spread: Georgia Southern -3.5
O/U: 48.5
This is the best team Clay Helton has built at Georgia Southern, record-wise. The Eagles enter their bowl game 8-4 after back-to-back 6-7 seasons, and they went 6-2 in Sun Belt play this season. Georgia Southern won six of its final eight games, taking down Marshall, James Madison, and South Alabama in the process.
Their passing offense isn't robust, with starting quarterback JC French posting just 2,667 yards and 16 touchdowns on the year, but it is diverse. Six different receivers have 24 or more receptions on the year with five of them having two or more touchdowns. Derwin Burgess Jr is one of the most underrated playmakers in college football, and he'll be a featured player in this bowl game matchup.
The Eagles aren't a particularly run-heavy offense either. Their lead rusher, Jalen White, has just 654 yards on the ground this season, and Georgia Southern is 88th in the country in EPA/Rush this season.
Their defense isn't quite as exciting as the offense, however. They are giving up 27.3 points per game, and you'd be hard-pressed to find me a metric that the team isn't in the 100s at defensively.
For Sam Houston State, they enter this game after dealing with blow after blow in the offseason. Head coach K.C. Keeler left to take the job at Temple, and the Bearkats had a slew of players depart in the portal, particularly all along their excellent defense from this season. These departures skew things away from what was a terrific season and mar their outcome for this game.
Sam Houston State lost virtually its entire running back room to the portal as well. However, given how poor Georgia Southern's run defense has been this season, I'm not sure it will matter much. Their offense took a major step forward once Hunter Watson took over under center, but this is still one of the worst offenses in the Group of Five this season.
New Orleans Bowl Prediction
Were college football not the way it is, this matchup could have been a much more interesting one. Unfortunately, the calendar's rapid acceleration with the transfer portal has diminished what could have been an excellent bowl game to merely intriguing.
With Sam Houston losing head coach K.C. Keeler and a few other key players, I'm not convinced the team can stay in this one. On the other hand, Georgia Southern's offense isn't exactly elite despite their production, and their defense is worse.
This is a tough one to call. I can see these two teams having a slugfest of the worst kind but I can also see these two teams just taking advantage of each other's mistakes and scoring a ton of points. With two bad defenses, I'm more comfortable predicting the over hitting in this one. I don't love taking Georgia Southern here to cover with their defense, but I'm willing to see it through.
Ultimately, I'm going to take the team that isn't making the conscious decision to hire Phil Longo when the season closes.
Prediction: Georgia Southern 28, Sam Houston 24
