Utah
vs.
San Jose State
College Football Pick
9/17/16
By Jason Green
Utah comes into this Game 2-0 and is coming off a solid 1-point win against a good BYU team. They are big road favorites heading to San Jose and with good reason. San Jose State was throttled in their season opener losing to Tulsa 45-10 before getting their first win last week against Portland State.
Utah begins Pac 12 play in their next Game with a big home Game against USC, but they cannot overlook SJSU on the road since they put up 66 points in their last Game. While the Utes played decent defense in the win over BYU they committed 6 turnovers in a sloppy affair.
Utah has won 6 of their 7 all-time match ups with San Jose State including winning all 4 Games facing them on the road. The last time they met was back in 2010 where the Utes laid a 56-3 beat down on the Spartans.
The Spartans did Score66 points last week and they may have to really light up the scoreboard again considering they only rank tied for 116th in the nation giving up an average of 40 ppg.
QB Troy Williams leads the Utah offense and he was not impressive in the win over BYU connecting on 14/23 passes for 194 yards with 1 TD, but was picked off 3 times. He has a lot of help in the backfield with the trio of RB’s in Troy McCormick, Zack Moss and Joe Williams. There is a good chance all of these guys can pad their numbers facing a Spartans’ squad that gave up 512 total yards in their loss in their first Game and 458 in a win in their last Game.
Utah has a pretty solid set of WR’s, but they will look to establish the run early and if San Jose cannot defend that they will be in big trouble. Even in beating Portland State the Spartans gave up over 200 rushing yards.
QB Kenny Potter, who passed for 5 TD and ran for 2 more in the win over Portland State, leads SJSU. He did not have a bad Game in the blowout loss to Tulsa in the season opener and he has a couple of solid WR’s in Tre Hartley and Justin Holmes. One big key will be the play of the Spartans’ offensive line, as Utah is legit up front on D and they must protect Potter as well as open up holes for the rushing Game. Deontae Cooper leads SJSU in rushing yards and his play is key taking pressure off Potter, who will be facing a solid Utah secondary that had 3 INT in the win over BYU.
While Utah has only covered the spread in 1 of their last 5 Games overall they are 11-3 ATS in their last 14 non-Conference Games and 9-3 ATS in their last 12 road Games.
San Jose State is a solid 19-9 ATS in their last 28 non-Conference Games, but only 2-9 ATS in their last 11 Games facing a team that has a winning record.
Jason’s Pick: I think San Jose State will put some points on the board, but not many while Utah will do just that. The Utes will easily win this Game and cover the 13-point spread. Utah -13