sorry, i'm not digging into the numbers for this one. i'm betting on 12th-year senior frank harris. after he returned from (yet another) injury, utsa won 7 straight until the conference championship game. they covered 5 of their last 6 before that game, getting backdoored in the only one they didn't cover. harris' numbers were definitely down this year. easily his worst year since 2020. maybe in part because he ran less this year than any year since 2019. his legs are a big part of his game. my guess, and it's just a guess, but maybe they tried to put the brakes on his run game to keep him healthy. if that's the case... then maybe he's going to run crazy tomorrow. he has a lot of incentive to have a big game. he easily could have gone somewhere else for his (8th) senior season. but he wanted to stay here. plus, he is 0-3 in bowl games. in all fairness, he faced some pretty good defenses the last 2 years (and i don't remember how ULL was defensively in 2020, so maybe 3 good defenses). anyway, my hope is we're going to see some vintage harris.
marshall's defense, which was pretty solid last year... not so great this year.
utsa is only missing one key player - edge rusher trey moore. he led the team with 14 sacks.
marshall's qb, fancher, is gone. not a big loss. freshman pennington (i assume he's chad's kid) will start. he played extensively in 3 games late in the season. he completed 62% of his passes with 0 TDs and 6 INTs. he averaged 5.5 yds/att, which is pretty bad. and gets worse if you take out one 65-yarder. that drops his average to 4.8 yds/att, which is terrible.
one more note... marshall turned the ball over 28 times this year. only 2 teams had more. and they got worse as the season went on... 15 TOs their last 5 games.
UTSA 1Q (-3) 3 units
UTSA (-12) 6 units
under (51.5) 3 units
marshall's defense, which was pretty solid last year... not so great this year.
utsa is only missing one key player - edge rusher trey moore. he led the team with 14 sacks.
marshall's qb, fancher, is gone. not a big loss. freshman pennington (i assume he's chad's kid) will start. he played extensively in 3 games late in the season. he completed 62% of his passes with 0 TDs and 6 INTs. he averaged 5.5 yds/att, which is pretty bad. and gets worse if you take out one 65-yarder. that drops his average to 4.8 yds/att, which is terrible.
one more note... marshall turned the ball over 28 times this year. only 2 teams had more. and they got worse as the season went on... 15 TOs their last 5 games.
UTSA 1Q (-3) 3 units
UTSA (-12) 6 units
under (51.5) 3 units