Cats vs. William & Mary Quarterfinals Predictions

[RickRund]

Little write-up from our opponents. I enjoyed it.

https://wmsportsblog.com/2022/12/07/5-w ... t-matters/

What's the over under on w&m getting an offensive holding?

Ha… 0.5.

And I still take the under.

Sorry for being so naive but what is holding?

Not positive actually. Think it's a penalty officials in other conferences call but I haven't seen one in person this season. Maybe tomorrow will be the game!

Some pictures of holding. I wouldn’t penalize these either. You can tell my wife is out of town…..my romantic side is coming through.

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/cou ... each-other

The picture with the couple holding the two puzzle pieces, they won't fit together. I can tell that is a staged picture.

[rfischer94]

After looking at snippets of several games:

MSU has the ball - there is no way they stop this running attack. We'll run for 400+. Vigen mentioned in his WSU presser that 2nd and long is no longer acceptable. Hopefully the cute stuff is stored for now. We score 7, 14, 14, and 10 = 45.

Bill has the ball - the way to stop this team is to contain Wilson. Very elusive, sprinter speed, great arm, and left-handed. I don't think we've seen anything like him. Contain, maybe spy (Danny U?), and set the edge. This will be one game where we'll need to stay home on D. I see Valdez wrecking some a$$ in the middle. Wilson will get away a couple times and hit a few long ones on our Corners. They score 10, 10, 10, and 3 = 33.

The cold will have an effect in the 2nd half. Their game temps have ranged from 87 to 58. It burns the lungs if you're not used to it. Can't help, but certainly can hurt - even if only mentally on a few players. Hopefully the sidelines are cleared and nobody takes a dive on the ice as they run OB.

Tough trip for them. Basically fly in and sit around all day Friday in the hotel with some walk-throughs in the banquet hall.

Hopefully some of their fans will make it out. Weber State did not show well - I would estimate 50 max looking over at the visitor section.

One of the few reasonable predictions in this thread. Seeing a good number of predictions with W&M scoring less than 20? I know Christmas is right around the corner, but not even Santa is going to grant you that wish.

I think both teams will move the ball effectively. MSU on the ground. WM will be a bit more balanced. I agree MSU will get 400 yards rushing and probably over 500 yards total. I think MSU will gain more yards in total too.

So how does WM manage to pull off a win.

1) Don’t give up long TD plays. WM can afford to give up 6-8 yards/play between the 20’s, but can’t allow MSU any 25+ yard TD runs/passes. Make MSU keep lining up and wait for a penalty or negative play to put them behind the chains. Bend, but stiffen up in the red zone. We’ve been an above average defense between the 20’s, but a great defense in the red zone.

2) Turnovers are a given in a game like this. Can’t afford to lose the turnover battle. WM offense has been pretty good in this department all year, but weather will be a factor. Wilson makes good decisions with the ball. We’ve had one TO in the last four games and are +6 in that same span.

3) Offensively, we’ll need a few big play action passing strikes to keep MSU defense off-balance. You won’t see many designed runs from Wilson, but we’ll need him to pick-up some first downs with his feet when things break down. We have a very good kicker with range, but we need TDs and not FGs when we get to the red zone. This has been a strength for the offense all year. We’ll probably need to gamble on a few 4th downs as well.

4) Get the better of MSU on special teams. We’ve been solid here all year. How drives finish will be more important than where they start, so field position is not quite as important in this game, but big plays in special teams are always a difference maker. I can confidently say we won’t air-mail 4 punt snaps and hand you a win on a silver platter

NCAA/ESPN did WM no favors scheduling this game for a Friday at 10:15 EST. Add in the weather, altitude and crowd and its a considerable home field advantage to overcome. That said WM is undefeated on the road this season.

Most under appreciated stat in this match-up. WM is 1st in the nation in sacks allowed (0.58/game) and hasn’t surrendered a sack the last two games (Richmond and Gardner Webb). Just hope the weather and field conditions allow us to mix the pass effectively.

https://twitter.com/rfischeresq/status/ ... YeAaA&s=19

[aucat]

34-24

I hope our D plays consistently.

[codecat]

I see this game to be a dual of offenses, and could be determined by which team makes the least number of mistakes on offense. W & M has a better balanced attack with a QB that is mobile as well.
MSU - 42
W&M - 31

[Bobcat Sig]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

[Augustus]

62-7

[Bocephus]

Glesner was 4/5 on field goals against Weber. If just 2 of those attempts are TDs, that game is over way sooner. I think that will be a point of emphasis for Vigen. Scoring TDs vs kicking FGs will be a crucial part of this game.

Cats 41
Tribe 31

[KageRage]

34-23 Bobcats with 2nd stringers giving up a TD late in the game. MSU’s defense comes up HUGE +2 in turnover battle.

[ilovethecats]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

All lines move all week based on what money is coming in, and what will bring in the most overall.

In this case, this will lead many MSU fans to bet more money. How it always works. Nothing to do with respect or no respect.

[91catAlum]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

This means the Cats are favored by 8.5 so that seems like respect to me??

[catatac]

For all the posters predicting the Cats to score less than 35 ish, I will be extremely impressed with the W&M defense if they come into Bobcat Stadium and do that..... unless we have a bunch of fluky mistakes. This offense is clicking on all cylinders, pretty much at full strength, in December. That's virtually unheard of.

[coloradocat]

For all the posters predicting the Cats to score less than 35 ish, I will be extremely impressed with the W&M defense if they come into Bobcat Stadium and do that..... unless we have a bunch of fluky mistakes. This offense is clicking on all cylinders, pretty much at full strength, in December. That's virtually unheard of.

We scored 33 against Weber last week which included 4 field goals. I'd be shocked if we didn't score at least 35 tonight. Our O/U should probably be 40. We've only scored under 40 four times this year (against FCS) and two of those were because we took our foot off the gas.

[Lord Vigo]

Here's my prediction:

Q1: Competitive back and forth with both teams finding a lot of success on the ground; tie game or MSU is even down.

Q2: Bobcats trade a score for a Punt or T/O and go into halftime with a modest lead (7 or fewer).

Q3: W&M punts or turns the ball over at least one more time and MSU extends to a 2+ score lead.

Q4: The Tribe get back within ~10 before Bobcats put it away with a game-killing drive ending in either a kneel down or TD.

Final: 44-27 Montana State

[Bobcat Sig]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

All lines move all week based on what money is coming in, and what will bring in the most overall.

In this case, this will lead many MSU fans to bet more money. How it always works. Nothing to do with respect or no respect.

Hey! Let me have my fake outrage.

[Bobcat Sig]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

This means the Cats are favored by 8.5 so that seems like respect to me??

My point is that it should be more. Like 2 TDs+ more

[91catAlum]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

This means the Cats are favored by 8.5 so that seems like respect to me??

My point is that it should be more. Like 2 TDs+ more

Over the #5 team in the country? ok.

[Bobcat Sig]

I’ve been told that the line has moved to Cats -8.5. No respect

This means the Cats are favored by 8.5 so that seems like respect to me??

My point is that it should be more. Like 2 TDs+ more

Over the #5 team in the country? ok.

I’m being facetious…

[coochorama42]

Here's my prediction:

Q1: Competitive back and forth with both teams finding a lot of success on the ground; tie game or MSU is even down.

Q2: Bobcats trade a score for a Punt or T/O and go into halftime with a modest lead (7 or fewer).

Q3: W&M punts or turns the ball over at least one more time and MSU extends to a 2+ score lead.

Q4: The Tribe get back within ~10 before Bobcats put it away with a game-killing drive ending in either a kneel down or TD.

Final: 44-27 Montana State

I think this is pretty much what I expect as well. It'll save me that write-up!

That being said, one thing that I respect about Vigen/Housewright and this offense is that they are doing everything in their power to get points on every possession after that NAU game. I mean, it seems obvious, but sometimes doing this means you sacrifice a chance at 7 points to put yourself in the best position to take the 3. I know that happened a couple times against Weber State last week and I seem to remember it against UM as well.

To that point, Montana State scored on seven of ten possessions against Weber State last week (3 TD, 4 FG, 1 missed FG, 1 punt, 1 final possession/run out clock). They scored on eight of nine possessions vs. Montana (6 TD, 2 FG, 1 final possession/run out clock). Against Cal Poly, they scored on eleven of thirteen possessions (8 TD, 3 FG, 1 Downs, 1 Fumble). The offense is on a phenomenal run and it's obvious that Vigen still sees room for improvement. His mention this week of avoiding 2nd and long really translates not only into turning FG into TD, but also keeps the streak of scoring on nearly every possession in play.

In this game, I hope MSU gets Pius on his heels by running right at him (especially behind Rush). Maybe my analysis isn't correct, but it really looks like he depends on his speed to make plays. The way to beat guys like that is to push them around rather than let them have the time and space to maneuver. When W&M has the ball, I really worry a lot about Donavyn Lester running the ball. I don't know why, but he just seems like the type of player that historically gives this defense fits. I know a lot of attention will go to Yoder and Wilson - and rightfully so - but for some reason Lester seems like quite the hammer. If MSU can't regularly cover both the QB and the pitch man (Yoder) on the options they run (what were you doing, Gardner Webb?), they will lose the game.

[Bobcat4Ever]

@BelligerentBobcat
I think this presentation of Sagarin data backs your point about tiers, exactly.

SAGARIN 2022-12-08

It was mentioned that there was no data that backed the confidence that the Montana State Bobcat Nation fans have. So, here is some dispassionate, unbiased, hard, cold, silicon chip data from Jeff Sagarin’s rating system which uses a mashup of three different score-based methodologies to produce a final rating. The ratings include all D-The difference in the ratings is the most likely value of the score differential in a game. I’ve extracted ratings of interest including the eight quarter finalists, and an interesting adjacency including Coastal Carolina, Weber State and Liberty which have referenced frequently. Specific to Montana State and William & Mary I have included their ratings, their FBS games, and their lone losses of the season. Please enjoy.

Points of Interest
1. For crying out loud, why does MSU always play a P5 FBS team, including Top-25 teams? I know, it’s $$$. But for one year could we please play #163 Charlotte and let someone else play #16 Oregon State?
2. The lone losses this year came for MSU to #16 Oregon State and for W&M to #157 Elon.
3. References have been plentiful to challenging FBS opponents Coastal Carolina and Liberty, and to suspect opponent FCS Weber State. Look at the ratings — they are #97, #98, #99 with Weber State smack dab in the middle. If they are challenging opponents, then they all are. If they are suspect opponents, then they all are. Would anyone feel differently if MSU had beaten Coastal Carolina and Liberty instead of Weber twice? It’s the same amount of work.

16 Oregon State A = 84.26 (Montana St. FBS game, MSU loss)

56 South Dakota State AA = 72.44 (quarterfinalist)
63 North Dakota State AA = 71.50 (quarterfinalist)
75 Sacramento State AA = 68.16 (quarterfinalist)
85 Montana State AA = 65.99 (quarterfinalist)

88 Incarnate Word AA = 65.30 (quarterfinals)

97 Coastal Carolina A = 63.95 (challenging or suspect?)
98 Weber State AA = 63.80 (challenging or suspect?)
99 Liberty A = 63.50 (challenging or suspect?)

117 Samford AA = 59.74 (quarterfinalist)
120 William & Mary AA = 59.09 (quarterfinalist)
135 Holy Cross AA = 56.20 (quarterfinalist)

157 Elon AA = 51.64 (William & Mary loss)
163 Charlotte A = 49.22 (William & Mary FBS game)

[chainbreaker]

Bobcats 34
W&M Tribe 21
Close at the half, like 17-14 or 14-7 and Cats take control in 3rd qtr.