Saturday, Dec. 14
7 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific
ESPN
The Salute To Veterans Bowl is held in the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. For older college football fans, the Cramton Bowl is the stadium which hosted the old Blue-Gray Classic postseason All-Star game for aspiring NFL draft prospects. Now the ballyard hosts the first bowl game of 2024, played right after Army-Navy on Saturday.
South Alabama and Western Michigan are both 6-6. South Alabama lost two of its final five games this season. The Jaguars clinched bowl eligibility in their next-to-last game of the season on November 23. Western Michigan lost three of its last four games. The Broncos were 5-3 through eight games, then lost three in a row, but recovered to beat Eastern Michigan in their final regular-season game on November 30 to clinch a bowl bid.
One point of curiosity about these teams, if you look very closely at the 12-game season schedules they played, is that South Alabama played really well in its midweek games. The Jaguars were 3-0 in games played from Tuesday through Thursday during the season and won those three games by an average of more than 40 points per game.
Western Michigan, on the other hand, played three “Maction” weeknight games in the month of November and lost all three of them by an average of over 11 points per game.
This game is on a Saturday, and yet it’s a bowl game, which is not played within the normal flow of the regular season. On the other hand, this bowl is played just two weeks after the 12th and final regular-season game. It’s almost as though these teams played their Nov. 29/30 game, had one week off, and will then play the following Saturday. Is there anything to glean from that, or is all of this a collection of idle coincidences?
South Alabama Jaguars-Western Michigan Broncos Odds
Spread: South Alabama -7.5 (-110), Western Michigan +7.5 (-110)
Total: 57.5 (Over -110, Under -110)
Underdog moneyline: Western Michigan +250
Will the initial bowl game for ESPN be wild?
The most notable score for either team this season, relative to this game and how these teams might stack up against each other, was Western Michigan’s 27-20 loss at Marshall. South Alabama and Marshall are both part of the Sun Belt Conference. USA did not face Marshall this season, but the Jaguars did finish two games below the Thundering Herd in conference play. South Alabama went 5-3 in eight Sun Belt games. Marshall went 8-1 in nine games, including the Sun Belt Championship Game win over Louisiana.
Western Michigan playing Marshall close on the road might point to WMU being more than capable of covering the spread here. On the other hand, that WMU-Marshall game was in late September. Western Michigan has gotten worse, not better, since that game. Plus, South Alabama is playing near its home base in this game. There are a lot of conflicting data points, which leads us to the view that you shouldn’t bet on this game before kickoff and should instead consider a live play.