3 reasons to watch and a prediction for 2022 Cure Bowl

The 2022 Cure Bowl is going to be one of the best games of the bowl season. Here is why you should watch and a prediction for UTSA vs Troy.  

Bowl season is nearly upon us and on Friday morning, one of the best seasons of the year will begin with the Bahamas Bowl, as well as the Cure Bowl.

The Bahamas Bowl will kickoff at 11:30 AM EST on ESPN in a battle of 6-6 teams as Miami (OH) will take on UAB on ESPN. That’s a solid appetizer but the main course comes at 3 PM EST on ESPN as UTSA and Troy will battle in the Cure Bowl.

Here are three reasons why you shuld watch, plus a prediction.

Matchup of conference champions

I loved bowl games when I was growing up. Back in those days, when I was a kid at least, there were only 15-20 bowl games. If you weren’t ranked, you weren’t even guaranteed to make a bowl game, so they just seemed to matter more.

Plus, there were only 11 regular-season games back then. At any rate, you used to see lots of bowl games between conference champions. You still do in the College Football Playoff and the New Years’ Six but not as much without the old tie-ins.

Anymore, I wish tie-ins didn’t exist so we could just see the best matchups. However, the Cure Bowl continues to do a great job of selecting teams and pitting two conference champions against each other in UTSA (C-USA) and Troy (Sun Belt) is awesome.

It’s also the only bowl game that will see two conference champions play against each other. The only other way two conference champions will meet is if Michigan and Georgia advance to the national championship game.

Two motivated teams

Both teams come into this matchup with identical 11-2 records. UTSA is ranked 25th and Troy is ranked 24th. The winner of the Cure Bowl will earned a spot in the final AP Top 25 rankings and also a 12-win season.

UTSA would also win its first ever bowl game. Jeff Traylor is a name college football fans should get to know because he’ll be coaching in a major league soon. His name surfaced a little around the Nebraska job and others.

What the Roadrunners have done is pretty amazing and that’s why they’ll be joining the American next season after back-to-back C-USA championships.

They will want to cap their season with a win and for Troy, a team that won five games a year ago, a 12-win season, a bowl victory and a conference title is about as much as anyone could ask under first-year head coach Jon Sumrall who has built a really good defense.

He’s a name you should been on the lookout for too.

Great offense vs Great defense

Frank Harris will lead the UTSA offense and it’s one that ranks 12th in all of college football with an average of 38.7 points per game. Harris is a dual-threat QB that completed 71 percent of his passes this season for 3,865 yards, 31 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. He also ran for 588 yards and two scores.

The Roadrunners throw for more yards per game and run for more yards per game than Troy. Yet, the Trojans allow just 207 yards per game through the the air. Quarterbacks are throwing one touchdown per game and 0.8 interceptions. Troy also surrenders just 3.3 yards per carry.

Kimani Vidal leads a ground game that averages 122 yards per game and on paper, there isn’t much flashy about the offense.

But the Trojans play complementary football and when you have a top-10 scoring defense you can win a lot of games.

2022 Cure Bowl prediction

At the end of the day, this game is going to come down to UTSA QB Frank Harris. If he can avoid sacks and turnovers, the Roadrunners should win the game. Their run defense allows 4.2 yards per carry and if the Trojans get a lead, they could really speed up the game. Turnovers are always important but even more important in bowl games.

Harris has been stellar at taking care of the football and he’ll be the difference as the Roadrunners with their first-ever bowl game 34-28.