The Cincinnati Bearcats and the Vanderbilt Commodores square off in Memphis for the AutoZone Liberty Bowl.

The Cincinnati Bearcats finished tied for first place in the Big East with West Virginia but because of their head to head loss to the Mountaineers UC settles for this spot. It’s year two of the Butch Jones era for Cincinnati and with his success rumors are already swirling about his possible departure. Zach Collaros has completed 63.4 percent of his passes with 14 touchdowns and eight interceptions while rushing for another eight touchdowns. Isaiah Pead averages 5.3 yards per carry and he scored 11 touchdowns playing the whole year after missing half of last season due to injury. Anthony McClung has 48 catches and five touchdowns, Kenbrell Thompkins has 44 catches and D.J. Woods has 37 catches. Defensively Cincinnati has 14 interceptions, 16 fumble recoveries, and 44 sacks while allowing 361.5 yards and 20 points. JK Schaffer has 105 tackles and 3.5 sacks, Drew Frey has 67 tackles, and Derek Wolfe has 9.5 sacks. Cincinnati’s only loss to a bowl team was against Tennessee in Knoxville, a team and a place where their opponent here lost as well.

The Vanderbilt Commodores won two of their last three to become bow eligible and while James Franklin’s team was pretty good against the spread this year they didn’t get wins against the better teams they faced. Vandy’s defense carried them for much of the season though the offense did finally come around in the end. Jordan Rodgers took over for Larry Smith and he completed 51.5 percent of his passes with nine touchdowns and nine interceptions but he still has another year to be known as something other than Aaron Rodgers’ brother. Zac Stacy averaged 6.2 yards per carry for 1,136 yards and 13 touchdowns as Warren Norman never made it to the field this year. Jordan Mathews had 37 catches and five touchdowns, Chris Boyd had 29 catches and seven touchdowns, and Jonathan Krause had 23 catches. Defensively Vandy had 17 interceptions, 10 fumble recoveries, and 24 sacks while allowing 20.8 points and 324.6 yards. Chris Marve had 84 tackles, Sean Richardson had 58 tackles, and Casey Heyward had 54 tackles and five interceptions. Vanderbilt’s only win over a bowl team came in their season finale in an out of conference game against Wake Forest.

Cincinnati is 5-1 against the spread in their last six non-conference games, 1-4 against the spread in their last five games as an underdog, and 0-4 against the spread in their last four bowl games. Vanderbilt is 6-1 against the spread in their last seven games overall, 4-1 against the spread in their last five non-conference games, and 1-4 against the spread as a favorite of up to three points.

Neither of these teams give up too much defensively and I don’t see that changing much here in what will be a fast moving game and for my free pick I’ll take the under on the total which is set at 49.5. My stronger play is on who will cover the spread and I will post that in the Premium Area.