Phil Steele Reveals His Best Bet for West Virginia's Bowl Game vs. Memphis

Some insight on the Frisco Bowl from college football expert Phil Steele.

West Virginia University quarterback Garrett Greene. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

You better go ahead and get your nap in so you'll be able to stay up for tonight's Scooter's Coffee Frisco Bowl between the West Virginia Mountaineers and Memphis Tigers.

As we do each week on the In the Gun podcast, we called up college football expert Phil Steele to get his thoughts on WVU's matchup.

Can West Virginia win the game?

“I think they do have a chance, provided everybody is focused on the game. Sometimes, when you have an interim head coach, you have maybe the coaching staff looking for jobs sending out resumes, you’re wondering if players are hitting the portal. But with only four players in the portal so far for West Virginia, you sort of get the feeling that they might be focused on the game. And if that’s the case, I do think their offense gets rolling. I know only 15 points against Texas Tech, but prior to that, they had been putting up some points."

Some thoughts on Memphis

“Go back and watch the Memphis and UTSA game. UTSA pretty much had their way, with Memphis’ defense putting up 44 points. I did like what I saw out of Memphis against Tulane a lot. I think winning ten games is important, especially when you have all your goals crushed. Memphis wanted to be the playoff team; they were a lot of folks pick to be the playoff team. Not mine. In fact, I didn’t even have them winning the American Conference this year. But coming into that Tulane game and winning it, they can now get to 11 wins this year.

Phil's best bet

“They do have a very potent offense. Seth Henigan is a dangerous QB, and going against that West Virginia secondary, you got to think he’s going to put some points up. But I think West Virginia with Garrett Greene, with (Jahiem) White, with (CJ) Donaldson, I think they can put some points up as well. My best play here is probably to go with the over. Sometimes, these bowls are a crapshoot, and you wonder who wants to be there. I know Memphis wants to be there. I think West Virginia wants to be there, and that means it could be an entertaining game. And a lot of times when the game means nothing like this, in the bowl preparation and you have extra time to prepare for the bowl, you’re going to see some trick plays, some fourth down, what the heck, let’s go for it on fourth and one and sometimes that turns it into a high-scoring game. We see a lot of these non-New Year’s Day bowl games turn out to be high-scoring because of that factor.”

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