Boise State
vs.
BYU
Friday Night
College Football
Pick – Trends
10/24/13
A couple of 5-2 teams pair off on this weeks Friday Night Football as BYU hosts Boise State in a Game that can be seen on ESPN at 8pm est. time. There’s currently a mix of -7’s and -7.5’s on the board as of this writing on Wednesday. At 5 dimes, you can get BYU -7 -120 and Boise +7 even. Or you can lay -7.5 even or take +7.5 -120. The current posted total is 63.
We’ve reached that time of year when many teams are trying to become bowl eligible and that’s the case in this one. Both sit with 5 wins and one more gets them over the hump. There’s little doubt that both of these teams will be playing in Bowl Games this year, but the fact that one becomes eligible Thursday night just ads a little more juice to the Game.
Last year Boise State beat BYU in a low scoring 7-6 affair in Boise. While it doesn’t look like we’re in for a repeat performance in terms of points scored, the total in this one is high enough that the under 63 may be worth a look. Boise State has put some big time points on the board this year as you might expect but the teams they have done it against haven’t exactly been defensive powerhouses. The majority of the teams they have played routinely give up 40+ points per Game. But Washington held Boise to 6 points and would be closer to BYU in terms of talent than any of the other teams on the Boise dance card.
BYU on the other hand, up until last weeks shootout with Houston, held every opponent to 21 points or less. Those opponents include Texas, Utah, Utah State and Georgia Tech. We don’t think the Boise offense is much better than any of those teams mentioned and now they’ll have to go the rest of the way with back up QB Grant Hedrick as starter Joe Southwick is now out indefinitely with an ankle injury. Hedrick filled in nicely against Nevada, but BYU should present more of a challenge.
The feeling here is that BYU is the better team this time around and at anything less than a touchdown we’d have to lean towards their side. We’re also thinking along the same lines as Our model as far as a Scorein this one. Our model predicts a 34-24 Game and we think it could be lower than that. Not 7-6 lower, like last year, but lower nonetheless.
The public likes Boise State plus the points in this one as the betting trends at 5dimes.com show 61% of the wagers have come in on the Broncos.
We’ll offer two opinions here. BYU/Boise Under 63 AND BYU-7 with the under being the stronger of the two.