Previewing Saturday’s New Orleans Bowl between the Appalachian State Mountaineers and Alabama-Birmingham Blazers betting odds and lines.
The Appalachian State Mountaineers (12-1) and Alabama-Birmingham Blazers (9-4) tangle Saturday in the New Orleans Bowl. Kickoff at Mercedes-Benz Superdome is set for 9 p.m. ET. We analyze the Appalachian State-UAB odds and betting lines, while providing college football betting tips and advice on this matchup.
Appalachian State vs. UAB: Three things you need to know
1. App State is 4-0 straight up all-time in bowl games, including a 45-13 win over Middle Tennessee in last season’s R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.
2. The Blazers of UAB are looking to rebound after a 49-6 dismantling at the hands of Florida Atlantic in the Conference USA Championship Game in Boca Raton, Fla. last time out.
3. Mountaineers RB Darrynton Evans, the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year, rolled up 1,323 rushing yards with a total of 17 touchdowns. The Blazers rank 13th against the run, allowing just 108.3 rushing yards per game. That will be the key matchup to watch.
The moneyline on App State (-770) is just too expensive. There is no way to justify risking nearly eight times the return, and UAB (+500) isn’t a good play. The Blazers aren’t going to be the first team to bounce the Mountaineers in a bowl game.
APPALACHIAN STATE (-16.5, -110) is worth a look. The Mountaineers are 8-1 ATS in the past nine non-conference tilts, 5-1 ATS in the past six against winning teams and 22-8 ATS in the past 30 overall. UAB (+16.5, -110) has posted a 2-5 ATS in the past seven against winning teams, and it’s 1-4 ATS in the past five as a dog.
OVER 48.5 (-125) is the way to go here. The Over has connected in seven of the past eight for the Mountaineers against winning teams, and 6-2 in their past eight non-conference battles. The Over is 8-3 in UAB’s past 11 against Sun Belt teams, and 4-1 in its past five appearances in December,
Get some action on this game or others, place a bet with BetMGM today. And for more sports betting picks and tips, visit SportsbookWire.com.
Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.
A former Vol is expected to join Missouri’s coaching staff.
COLUMBIA – UAB tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Casey Woods is expected to join Eliah Drinkwitz’s coaching staff at Missouri, Vols Wire has learned.
Drinkwitz was introduced as Missouri’s head coach at an introductory press conference Dec. 10.
Woods was a graduate assistant at Tennessee in 2008 and played for the Vols from 2003-07 as a wide receiver and holder.
The former Vol served as an offensive quality control assistant at Auburn from 2009-11 and over wide receivers and a recruiting coordinator for Arkansas State in 2012.
Both of those stops were coaching alongside Drinkwitz who served as a quality control assistant at Auburn (2010-11) and as running backs coach at Arkansas State (2012).
Rush Propst is the former head coach of powerhouse Hoover High School in Alabama that gained notoriety on the MTV show Two-A-Days. In 2004, Jeremy Pruitt was hired by Propst as an assistant.
BIRMINGHAM — The UAB Blazers played in the Conference USA championship game for consecutive seasons in 2019.
The Blazers won the 2018 Conference USA championship under head coach Bill Clark.
Part of UAB’s 2019 Conference USA Western Division championship has been Rush Propst serving as a volunteer consultant for the Blazers.
Propst and Clark have a long history dating back to when the notable, former Hoover and Colquitt County High School head coach played for Ragan Clark, Bill’s father.
The Montgomery Advertiser – Dec. 10, 2004
Propst went on to hire (Bill) Clark when he served as head coach at Ohatchee and Hoover. The two would also coach against each other when Clark served as Prattville High School’s head coach.
Propst discussed Clark’s remarkable run at UAB after the Blazers’ football program was shutdown following the 2014 season and did not compete in 2015 and 2016, returning to action in 2017.
The Blazers posted an 8-5 record in 2017 and played in the Bahamas Bowl. Last season, UAB went 11-3 and were Conference-USA and Boca Raton Bowl champions. In 2019, UAB is 9-4 and slated for a New Orleans Bowl appearance.
“I can’t say enough about Bill,” Propst told Vols Wire. “I don’t know what else I could say that would make people believe that this maybe the greatest job of college football coaching.”
Less than a year removed as Colquitt County’s head coach, Propst has been around college football during the 2019 season, serving as a volunteer consultant and co-hosting a radio show, ‘Tennessee Two-A-Days’, breaking the game down with the likes of Troy Calhoun, Trent Dilfer, Tony Franklin, Hugh Freeze, Todd Graham, Tyson Helton, Mike Leach, Hal Mumme, Jake Spavital, George Quarles and many others.
The Montgomery Advertiser – Dec. 9, 2004
“He is one of my best friends, we are like brothers and like family,” Propst said of Clark. “I played for his dad, we coached together for his dad. Bill worked for me in 1989 and was the first hire when I got the job, he was the first phone call and the first assistant I hired. When I got the Hoover job in 1999, he was the first assistant I hired and he stayed with me from January until right before he took the Prattville job in July. He helped me establish the job at Hoover. He put the defense in and we ran his defense that year.”
Clark has now guided the UAB program from the dead to back-to-back Conference-USA championship game appearances and three consecutive bowl games.
With the relationship between the two, it is fitting Propst has played a role in UAB’s C-USA division title this season.
“For what Bill went through here is really movie-worthy and book-worthy because people do not know enough about it,” Propst said. “He comes in and leaves a Jacksonville State program, which is home for him and where he went to school. All of sudden UAB comes calling and he takes the job and has a heck of a year the first year, and to shut it down and to go through what he went through — to tear it down and for him to sit there and wait for two years and battle, and just battle.
“Bill is a fighter, he is competitive, but he is a fighter. He fought and Birmingham rallied, UAB supporters rallied, alumni rallied, he went around everywhere and said I’m not leaving and want to see this program reinstated — it is one of the greatest stories of all time in football.”
Coaching search discussions, contract negotiations, job opportunities for Gus Malzahn, Bill Clark and Rush Propst.
[jwplayer hlC4ngq4-er0jUifI]
Arkansas is in the process of hiring a new head coach. The Razorbacks are a 2020 opponent for Tennessee. The Vols will travel to Arkansas on Oct. 31, 2020.
KNOXVILLE — Arkansas fired head coach Chad Morris one day following the Razorbacks’ 45-19 loss to Western Kentucky in Week 11 of the 2019 season.
Morris finished his Arkansas tenure with a 4-18 record in two seasons.
Now a coaching search is taking place and Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn is at the forefront of Arkansas’ vacancy. Malzahn served as the Razorbacks’ offensive coordinator in 2006 and has a long history in the high school ranks throughout the state.
Gus Malzahn’s coaching career in Arkansas
Hughes High School (1991, DC)
Hughes High School (1992–1995, HC)
Shiloh Christian High School (1996–2000, HC)
Springdale High School (2001–2005, HC)
Arkansas (2006, OC/WR)
Arkansas State (2012, HC)
Gus Malzahn’s playing career in Arkansas
Arkansas (1984–1985)
Henderson State (1987–1989)
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Former quarterback Mitch Mustain and tight end Ben Cleveland played for Malzahn at Springdale High School and Arkansas. Both discussed their former coach on Fox Sports Knoxville’s radio show ‘Tennessee Two-A-Days’, providing their thoughts if Malzahn would leave Auburn and return to Arkansas as the Razorbacks’ next head coach.
“Obviously that is going to be the state’s number one choice is trying to get coach Malzahn back home,” Cleveland said. “At the end of the day, he gets to dictate what he wants to do. He has done a phenomenal job at Auburn, but I know everyone in the state, or even with the Arkansas program, would love to have coach Malzahn back.”
Cleveland also mentioned that the timing for Malzahn to return to Arkansas is more realistic now compared to two years ago when the Razorbacks courted the Auburn head coach.
“Circumstances need to be lined up for him to take it,” Cleveland said of Malzahn. “Do I think circumstances are more lined up now than they were two years ago, before we offered him that crazy amount, yes.”
Mustain also discussed Arkansas’ head coaching vacancy now compared to two years ago.
“It seems like we have that talk every couple of years when Arkansas decides to flip something over,” Mustain said. “One-hundred percent last time it was not a good move for him at the time. I’m not so sure this time, some things have changed.
“Having a close relationship with Gus, at least a close working relationship in the past, I would be hard-pressed to tell him to jump for it and go. Auburn, obviously he has his issues at Auburn, and there’s a lot of question as to how long he could hang onto that if he doesn’t make some serious changes. We have seen him make some changes in play-calling, taking back some of that role, and we saw a lot of improvement I think with it, and that was a criticism I even had where he was handing that off.”
‘Tennessee Two-A-Days’ co-host and former Hoover and Colquitt County High School head coach Rush Propst discussed on the show how someone “can stay at a place too long.”
“Because we’re competitors, we’re fighters, we are going to fight you tooth and nail on everything,” Propst said. “When you tell us we should go, or when you feel that maybe you are not as popular as you were two years ago, you dig into even more so to show people that you can still run this ship.
“Eventually it comes a point in time that you have to look at retirement and where do you want to end up as a human being – not as a coach but as a human being. You get to retire doing what you love, coaching football, in your home state.”
If Malzahn does leave for Arkansas, then a head coach opening would need to be filled at Auburn.
Cleveland calls UAB head coach Bill Clark “a hot name” throughout college football for any vacancy.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Propst has a longtime relationship with Clark. The former Hoover and Colquitt County head coach has been doing consultant work this season with various schools including UAB.
The seven-time high school state champion and 2015 national championship head coach has fielded college coaching discussions recently, while breaking down the game with the likes of Troy Calhoun, Trent Dilfer, Tony Franklin, Hugh Freeze, Todd Graham, Tyson Helton, Mike Leach, Hal Mumme, Jake Spavital and George Quarles.
With Clark being a candidate for head coaching vacancies at Florida State and Arkansas currently, he is also in-line for contract negotiations with UAB following three consecutive seasons of reaching a bowl game and winning the 2018 Conference-USA championship in as many years following the program’s reinstatement.
“They’re probably going to renegotiate his contract closer to $2 million,” Propst said of Clark.
Propst continued to discuss Clark’s historic achievements following UAB’s shutdown during the 2015 and 2016 seasons and him being considered for multiple Power 5 jobs.
“Nobody has done anything in the history of college football to what he did at UAB – even remotely close,” Propst said. “If Gus decided not to come (to Arkansas), he (Clark) would be a great choice because he has been able to take a program that was given the death penalty – the real death penalty – where football was taken completely away for two years. He goes back and not only brings it back to a good level, he wins the conference. He knows how to recruit. Like Gus, he is a high school coach at heart. He knows what high school coaches want to hear.”
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
The entire discussion of Malzahn and Clark being part of head coaching searches on ‘Tennessee Two-A-Days’ with Propst, Mustain and Cleveland can be listened to below that include the Blazers’ coach to also receive a hard look from Mississippi State if the Bulldogs’ job were to open.
