Caleb Wilfinger
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After a long and eventful college football regular season, the most wonderful time of the year is here. Bowl season has arrived and with it comes a myriad of interesting games between teams that we don’t often see paired up against each other in a neutral site setting. This year’s installment of the Gasparilla Bowl features the UCF Knights against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Will the Yellow Jackets get the outright upset or can UCF finish off its season with a victory? Let’s get into the game. Here is my Georgia Tech vs UCF Same Game Parlay for Friday’s matchup, which will be televised starting at 6:30 pm ET on ESPN.
Georgia Tech ML (+170)
John Rhys Plumlee to score a touchdown (-110)
NCAAF Same Game Parlay odds: +427
One of the benefits of Same Game Parlays, of course, is that you don’t have to correlate the plays and your odds will increase as a result. That is the plan here, as Georgia Tech winning outright doesn’t necessarily correlate with UCF’s John Rhys Plumlee finding the end zone. But at the same time, there’s no reason why both can’t happen. Let’s break down each of the legs.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets ML over UCF Knights (+170)
On paper, this is a fascinating game. Both of these teams achieved great wins this season but also suffered equally terrible losses, which explains why they just barely battled their way into bowl qualification with 6-6 records. UCF started 3-0 before losing 5 in a row and then rallying to win 3 of its last 4, including a dominant performance against Oklahoma State. On the other hand, Georgia Tech was much more predictable throughout the regular season; the Yellow Jackets never lost back-to-back games, but also never won more than 2 straight this season.
The Knights are slightly superior from a statistical standpoint on paper, but it’s important to keep in mind that the Yellow Jackets played a much tougher schedule this season. Furthermore, the duo of QB Haynes King and RB Jamal Haynes have been especially impressive of late. The Yellow Jackets offense took off in Georgia Tech’s 3-1 stretch over its last 4 conference contests and even saw success against Georgia to close out the campaign. Even with a few players in the transfer portal on defense, the offense is mostly intact for this game. Georgia Tech has been such a high-variance team all season, that I’d rather take the Yellow Jackets money line in the game as opposed to just taking the points.
Be sure to check out our full Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets vs UCF Knights predictions
John Rhys Plumlee to score a touchdown (-110)
While I do like the Yellow Jackets to win this game, I believe we’re getting a bit of value on John Rhys Plumlee to record a touchdown in Friday’s contest. For starters, UCF is a run-first offense that is top 25 in rushing success rate and 10th in EPA per rush on the season (CFB-Graphs). There’s also the matter of Georgia Tech’s atrocious run defense, as the Yellow Jackets rank well outside the top 100 in opponent rushing success rate and EPA per rush. Plumlee isn’t shy about toting the rock, racking up 8+ carries in each start this season. He’s also recorded a touchdown in 5 of those 8 games, so there’s precedent for him finding the end zone in this one. I’d expect Plumlee to have plenty of cracks at finding the end zone here. Let’s go for some added value with Plumlee in our Same Game Parlay.
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