Military Bowl 2013

The Military Bowl has the Marshall Thundering Herd of Conference USA vs. the Maryland Terrapins of the Atlantic Coast Conference and soon to be of the Big 10 Conference next season.  In the table below, using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model, we see that Marshall has been more productive than Maryland this season.

Military Bowl 2013
	Thundering Herd	Terrapins
Wins	9	7
Losses	4	5
Total	16	59
Offense	9	72
Defense	64	39
SOS	80.08	77.67
Best	23	39
Worst	73	83

Below is a more detailed analysis of these two teams using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model.

The Marshall Thundering Herd finished the regular season at 9-4 playing against an "easier" strength of schedule (SOS) as compared to the "league" average - meaning that Marshall's SOS is between one and two standard deviations higher than the "league" average.  The Thundering Herd's best game of the season was a victory over currently ranked #23 East Carolina and their worst performance was a loss to currently ranked #73 Ohio.  Marshall currently has the #16 ranked team overall, with currently the #9 most productive offense in all of the Football Bowl Subdivision and the #64 most productive defense.

Maryland finished the season at 7-5 win their best game a win over #39 Virginia Tech, and the only victory against a team currently ranked in the top half of the CICFPM.  All of the other six victories are against teams ranked in the bottom 25% of teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision.  The Terrapins worst performance came against currently ranked #83 Wake Forest in a loss.  Maryland, like Marshall, also played against an "easier" SOS.   Maryland currently ranks as the #59 team in overall production, with the #72 offense and the #39 defense.

From the viewpoint of the CICFPM, Marshall is more productive than Maryland, and thus the model "predicts" that Marshall will be the winner in this year's Military Bowl.