This (The Famous Idaho Tater Bowl, or is it the American Standard Toilet Bowl?) is by far the oddest game to handicap of the entire bowl slate to date.
The first thing that jumps out is that WSU won the Pac-12 Conference with a 1-1 record (6-6 overall)
My question is, without getting into the semantics of the entire thing, can a conference consist of just two teams?
I like to look at each team's overall SoS and Conference SoS.
Overall, both teams are 6-6; both teams played a relatively easy schedule, so there's no edge there.
Moving on...
Breaking down Utah State first.
Six wins-six losses, every game the Ags were involved in resulted in a total of 45 +points, and only three of those games had totals under fifty points,
Two games were in the 60s, one in the 70's, and one in the 80s.
And who can forget that 90-point, 55-35 loss to Vandy?
Nice defense. The average score of a USU game is 32-29.
On the other hand, every game Washington State played in total was kept under 45 points (Except for those two back-to-back losses in September, where the Cougars lost 59-10 and 59-24). In the last eight games the Cougars were involved in, the average total score struggled to reach the mid-30s.
Overall, the average score of a Cougar game was 21-20.
Something has to give.
As a rule, when faced with odd matchups like this, I tend to favor the defensive units, but that's just me. I place a premium on defense.
I don't think Utah State can hang a 31 burger on the Cougar later this afternoon.
The line is currently at USU -1.5, the total is currently at 50.5, up a full point from an hour ago.
Wrong team favored (IMO)
Washington State is my play.
+1.5
This goes for 2*
Best of luck, all.
The first thing that jumps out is that WSU won the Pac-12 Conference with a 1-1 record (6-6 overall)
My question is, without getting into the semantics of the entire thing, can a conference consist of just two teams?
I like to look at each team's overall SoS and Conference SoS.
Overall, both teams are 6-6; both teams played a relatively easy schedule, so there's no edge there.
Moving on...
Breaking down Utah State first.
Six wins-six losses, every game the Ags were involved in resulted in a total of 45 +points, and only three of those games had totals under fifty points,
Two games were in the 60s, one in the 70's, and one in the 80s.
And who can forget that 90-point, 55-35 loss to Vandy?
Nice defense. The average score of a USU game is 32-29.
On the other hand, every game Washington State played in total was kept under 45 points (Except for those two back-to-back losses in September, where the Cougars lost 59-10 and 59-24). In the last eight games the Cougars were involved in, the average total score struggled to reach the mid-30s.
Overall, the average score of a Cougar game was 21-20.
Something has to give.
As a rule, when faced with odd matchups like this, I tend to favor the defensive units, but that's just me. I place a premium on defense.
I don't think Utah State can hang a 31 burger on the Cougar later this afternoon.
The line is currently at USU -1.5, the total is currently at 50.5, up a full point from an hour ago.
Wrong team favored (IMO)
Washington State is my play.
+1.5
This goes for 2*
Best of luck, all.