WHO: SMU (7-5) vs. Louisiana Tech (6-6)
WHAT: The inaugural DXL Frisco Bowl
WHEN: 8 p.m. ET on ESPN
WHERE: Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas
THE SKINNY: Two teams that are a combined one game above .500, one of whom has already lost its coaching staff, playing in a bowl game that did not exist a year ago in a nondescript suburb whose greatest tourist destination is a mall. In other words, the DXL Frisco Bowl is the perfect 2017 bowl game.
You know about SMU by now. Head coach Chad Morris left for Arkansas and interim head coach Jeff Traylor also left for Arkansas, which means new head coach Sonny Dykes will coach the Mustangs a week and a half after taking the job. This means that graduate assistant G.J. Kinne will call plays, with heavy game-planning input from quarterback Ben Hicks.
SMU should be fine on offense; they ranked 16th nationally in yards per play and eighth in scoring at 40.2 points per game. The problem, though, is that SMU still has its same defense. The Ponies ranked 113th in scoring defense at 35.5 points per game. SMU hasn’t held an opponent under 30 points since Oct. 21 and gave up 44.5 points a game over the course of a 1-3 November that would have seen the club go 0-4 if not for a favorable ruling that preserved a 41-38 win over Tulane on the season’s final Saturday.
Louisiana Tech, meanwhile, is led by Dykes’s replacement Skip Holtz. The Bulldogs ended a streak of three consecutive 9-win seasons and two straight Conference USA West Division championships as its offense fell from second to 62nd in scoring. Louisiana Tech’s defense did climb from 97th to 66th in scoring, but the net change saw an average score go from 44-34 in Louisiana Tech’s favor in 2016 to a 29-27 score this fall. The Bulldogs’ 6-6 record included a 1-6 mark against bowl-bound teams, with the lone win coming by a 23-22 decision over 6-6 Western Kentucky back on Sept. 16.
THE PICK: SMU 38, Louisiana Tech 34