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ESPN Favors WKU By Wide Margin Over Southern Miss

In a game with two of Conference USA's best quarterbacks, many are seeing Saturday's CUSA championship game between WKU and Southern Miss as a bit of a toss up. But, on paper (or some form of paper I'm assuming), it's Hilltoppers by a long shot.

By FletchTopper
Joshua Lindsey-USA TODAY Sports

ESPN's all powerful and predictive Football Power Index - or FPI - is out and has each conference matchup equated out to a favorite and an underdog using...whatever math ESPN came up with, probably.

It was first brought to my attention by the almighty Chad Bishop, former WKU beat writer for the Bowling Green Daily News, and current writer/sometimes TV star on WBKO.

Wowzah. That's a pretty heavy favorite. Especially considering Yahoo!'s Pat Forde predicted a Southern Miss win in his Yard Dash column yesterday.

But not only is it a wide margin in favor of Western Kentucky (again, according to the FPI), but it's the largest margin between two teams among all conference championship games.

  • WKU over Southern Miss - 78.6% - 21.4%
  • Houston over Temple - 65.9% - 34.1%
  • Alabama over Florida - 77.8% - 22.2%
  • USC over Stanford - 51.5% - 48.5%
  • Michigan State over Iowa - 63.6% - 36.4%
  • Clemson over North Carolina - 59.0% - 41.0%
That's right. Not only is WKU more favored than any other favorite on championship weekend, but they're more favored than Alabama over Florida (which, I think is going to be closer than many think). That's...pretty awesome.

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