The Music City Bowl is ready to host the Auburn Tigers and the Purdue Boilermakers. Here’s everything you need to know about the game.
Jeff Brohm and his Purdue Boilermakers are a program on the rise headed to Nashville for the Music City Bowl. When they get there, they’ll meet up with Gus Malzahn and the Auburn Tigers, an SEC team that always seems to either underachieve lofty expectations or considerably overachieve and make some noise in the national title discussion throughout the year.
Right now, Auburn is coming off of a year that could have gone better based off of those expectations. Malzahn had a team assembled that, theoretically, could have competed against the conference’s best and make things difficult for Alabama and Georgia. Instead, the Tigers fell flat on offense.
Starting quarterback Jarrett Stidham had an up and down season in which he completed just 60.1 percent of his passes for 2,421 yards and a measly 13 touchdowns. The Tigers were also only able to piece together a rushing attack that produced 164.1 rushing yards per game. That combination led to an ineffective and insufficient offense forcing the Tigers’ talented defense to be on the field for far too long in each game.
Meanwhile, the Purdue Boilermakers thrived on offense all season while giving up quite a few points on defense throughout the year. The Boilermakers shredded opposing defenses thanks to David Blough throwing 3,521 yards and 25 touchdowns while completing 66.6 percent of his throws.
But Blough was far from being the biggest name on Purdue’s roster that those watching this game need to know about. Wide receiver Rondale Moore is a player that few defenders can actually handle and, as a result, he caught 103 passes for 1164 yards and 12 touchdowns. He also added 203 rushing yards and a running touchdown to his totals as well.
How to watch and bet on the Music City Bowl
- Date: Friday, Dec. 28
- Start time: 1:30 p.m. ET
- Location: Nashville, TN
- Stadium: Nissan Stadium
- Spread: Auburn -3.5
- Channel: ESPN
- Stream: WatchESPN
Prediction: The Purdue Boilermakers are going to do everything that they can to turn this game into a track meet. There’s little chance that they could contend with the Auburn Tigers’ defensive front if they didn’t make this game a high-speed, high-scoring affair. Given Auburn’s offensive issues this season, it’s safe to assume that Jeff Brohm’s Boilermakers would welcome a shootout with Malzahn.