Not every bowl game will provide big scores, but a 5.5-point spread between the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs and Georgia Southern Eagles at least suggests some goodness despite a 48.5-point over/under at NCAAF odds for the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.

The Bulldogs enter this one with a 5-4 record and just two games played since October 31st, including a 42-31 win over the North Texas Mean Green and a 52-10 drubbing to the hands of the Texas Christian Horned Frogs. Our power rankings at numberFire pit them at 114th in the country out of 127 teams. Their nERD rating of -15.88 indicates that they should normally lose to an average opponent on a neutral field by more than two touchdowns.

Georgia Southern has a 1-3 record over their past four games with a point differential of +2 in those four games. Their nERD score of -2.94 puts them on the wrong side of the national average of 0.00, but it's still 12.94 points better than Louisiana Tech's mark.

Game Overview

Here's a snapshot of each team's pass and rush offense and defense ranks, based on adjusted passing yards per attempt and rushing yards per carry.

Neither of these two teams rank inside the top 90 in the country in adjusted passing yards per attempt, but both are top-half in adjusted passing yards per attempt allowed, so the passing games could struggle to get going. That shouldn't really matter for Georgia Southern, as they're 125th in the country in pass-to-run ratio. Louisiana Tech is 30th, however.

Georgia Southern has played their past two games without starting quarterback Shai Werts, who isn't yet ruled out of the bowl game, and started Justin Tomlin. Tomlin, though, got hurt last game. Miller Mosley, a transfer from Wofford, would start. This season, Mosley has thrown 2 picks on 16 attempts but also had a touchdown in limited time. He had just seven attempts at Wofford last season.

As far as their predicted points added go -- a stat that comes from CollegeFootballData.com -- the Eagles average 0.18 points per play offensively and allow 0.13 defensively, a net of 0.05. Louisiana Tech's at 0.07 and 0.18, respectively, for a net mark of -0.11. This helps explain such a big discrepancy in nERD, as well. Of course, the quarterback situation will reduce that margin for Georgia Southern.

Further, a strength of the Georgia Southern offense is their rushing efficiency (21st), which they use to generate 262.4 yards per game, good for 7th in the country. Louisiana Tech has allowed 184.6 yards per game on the ground, ranking them 88th in the country. We project Georgia Southern to rush for 230.9 yards. Mosley may just need to manage this game.

Algorithm-Based Bets

Our detailed game projections are into the Eagles as 5.5-point favorites. Our algorithm already viewed the differential between the two teams to be nearly 13 points, so that checks out. Georgia Southern covered the spread 63.1% of the time in our simulated games. Our algorithm ranks that as a three-star bet out of five. Georgia Southern's moneyline (-235) is a four-star bet.

Our algorithm projects a median score of 29.4 to 19.3, a total of 48.7 -- just in line with the posted total of 48.5 points. The over did hit in 53.1% of the simulations if you feel so inclined, but Georgia Southern outright and to cover are the better bets.