There’s some real action to be found on the Week 6 college football schedule before Saturday hits, including an appearance by No. 24 BYU on Friday. Veteran college football betting expert Bruce Marshall has insight every contest on the schedule. Here’s the information he’s working with for Thursday and Friday’s games.
With matchups like this, we often analyze in reverse… which side do we want less? If that’s the variable, for not only Thursday night in Las Cruces, but likely for every game the rest of the season, a case can probably be made for Sam Houston. This figured to be a tough slog for the Bearkats, who lost head coach KC Keeler to Temple in the offseason. Well-traveled veteran OC Phil Longo, once the Bearkats’ OC but more recently in higher-profile roles in the same position at Ole Miss, North Carolina and Wisconsin, inherited an all-portal defense and a handful of offensive starters.
Being forced to play home games in Houston’s MLS stadium this season, an hour away (without traffic) from the Huntsville campus, is another hurdle, but in a winless start (0-4 SU and vs. the spread), SHSU has nonetheless gotten progressively worse each game. Quarterback Hunter Wesson (leading passer and rusher) forms the majority of the attack, for better or worse, and has yet to log a TD pass, which has occasionally caused Longo to splice two other backup QBs into the mix with no tangible differences. As for the defense, it’s allowing 42.8 PPG, ranking 132 out of 134 nationally. Not good!
That NMSU is actually a slight home underdog to the Bad News Bearkats might be enough to make Aggies fans wear bags over their heads on Thursday night for that insult, though NMSU actually has two wins (one over FCS team Bryant). As for QB Logan Fife, who has starting experience at Fresno State and Montana in his past, he’s at least been able to throw TD passes (five of them to date), though the NMSU offense more resembles one of those high school summer passing leagues, as the imbalance between passing and rushing yards is stark (1,051 passing yards and 157 rushing yards).
So it’s mostly Fife playing James Bond and fighting off the bad guys by himself, but he did star in the 21-14 win over a not-so-bad Tulsa side, passing for 252 yards and two TDs (no picks, too), more than anything the Bearkats have accomplished. The mostly beleaguered Aggies head coach Tony Sanchez does have some wins (24) in his seventh year as a college skipper, too, more than Longo, whose only handful of wins as a head coach came long ago at La Salle between his various assistant gigs. Maybe SHSU has finally found a team it can beat, but there’s not enough evidence to say that with any conviction. NMSU’s Fife at least looks like a competent QB, and for these types of matchups, that edge often proves the difference. We’re just not ready to recommend the Bearkats against anyone, at least until further notice.
There’s a fine line at the mid-to-lower tier of the FBS level of college football, absent the sort of dominating teams that regularly stretch scores. With a few exceptions (think Boise State in some recent seasons), the Mountain West is that kind of league, where the margins are often tight. A play here or play there can end up defining an entire season; sometimes, even the most basic of plays can alter the course of a campaign. Take low-variance San Jose State, invariably bound to play close games at this level, but which enters Friday night at CEFCU Stadium with a collection of normally routine field goal misses by Denis Lynch from a 3-1 record. Instead, the Spartans are 1-3, and what seemed a promising season for Ken Niumatalolo is now teetering on the brink, the hope of bowl qualification narrowing as October begins.
If the opening 16-14 loss to Central Michigan was galling for the Spartans, when Lynch missed a pair of potential game-winners in the final three minutes, last Saturday’s loss to neighbor Stanford might sting for a while longer. A rare chance to win back-to-back years vs. the wine-and-cheese crowd from Palo Alto seemed to be in the cards for much of the night as SJSU QB Walker Eget had the game of his life (473 passing yards and three TD throws), but a pair of missed field goals by Lynch from only 28 and 29 yards in the third quarter prevented the Spartans from extending the lead. The Cardinal rallied late to win 30-29 on a Sedrick Irvin 1-yard run with just 19 seconds to play.
Through the first month, the offense could probably use a bit more balance, passing on two-thirds of its plays (yes, this is the same Coach Ken whose Navy teams lived and died with the option for his 15-season run at Annapolis); perhaps RBs Jabari Bates (who scored on an 87-yarder vs. Idaho on Sept. 20, the Spartans’ lone win) and holdover Floyd Chalk IV, who ran for 721 yards a year ago, could be better utilized. A veteran defense, featuring five returning players in the front seven, is at least keeping San Jose in games. Yet playing so close to the edge, and with an unreliable kicker, the Spartans are proving a risky investment, dropping three of four ATS (the only cover in a 38-7 loss at Texas), and are now in a 3-10 spread slump since early last season.
At the opposite end of the spectrum lie the visiting Lobos, proving surprisingly plucky for new head coach Jason Eck, who arrived after some good success in the Big Sky at Idaho. He inherited what looked like a daunting assignment in Albuquerque after Bronco Mendenhall propped up UNM to a surprising 5-7 and narrowly missed a bowl invite last fall before quickly departing to Utah State, and the portal took a big bite from last year’s roster (including dual-threat QB Devon Dampier, now doing his thing at Utah). The new-look Lobos, however, showed no fear at the Big House vs. Michigan in the opener, sticking within 10 points into the fourth quarter for an easy cover, before delivering the signature moment in recent program history on September 12 at UCLA, battering the Bruins for 295 rushing yards and a dominating 35-10 win that cost DeShaun Foster his job.
The ability of the Lobos to run (174 yards per game) separates them from most of the mid-to-lower tier of the Mountain West, while QB Jack Layne, who along with several others followed Eck from Idaho, is proving serviceable enough and completing nearly 70% of his well-timed passes. Pulling clear of Land of Enchantment rival NMSU last Saturday has UNM at 3-1 (also 3-0 ATS vs. FBS foes), and full of confidence that it can succeed here. The price has narrowed, but we sure don’t want to be on the Spartans side if it comes down to another late field goal try for SJSU.
West Virginia at BYU (10/3, 10:30 p.m. ET)
Of all of the coaching moves this past offseason, Rich Rodriguez’s return to Morgantown was one of the more curious. The track record of “2.0” regimes has always been a mixed bag. So far, this homecoming to WVU has hit a few detours, though it does include a rousing 31-24 overtime win over Pitt on Sept. 13 in the latest edition of the Backyard Brawl. Rodriguez has been given some rope due to a master roster rebuild that features close to 80 portal adds. The Pitt win, however, is a lone highlight; the wheels have come off since.
This isn’t the same spread option, complete with zone reads by the QB, that Rodriguez pioneered two decades ago. Hard-trying holdover QB Nicco Marchiol is proving an awkward fit, a pocket passer absent the sport of speed that has made the better Rodriguez offenses work in the past, and is now dealing with a foot injury that kept him out of last week’s lopsided loss to Utah. Backups including Texas A&M transfer Jaylen Henderson and freshman Khalil Wilkins were overwhelmed by the Utes, and if Marchiol can’t return to active duty on Friday, the Mountaineers could be facing another damning fate after getting boat-raced in back-to-back weeks vs. Kansas (41-10) and the Utes (48-14). Struggles along the OL and nagging injuries to several RBs have limited what should be the bread-and-butter of the Mountaineer offense. A totally rebuilt defense from the portal is providing little relief after getting overwhelmed the past two Saturdays.
This presents some scary prospects for a Friday night trip to Provo, as host BYU is undefeated and full of confidence after its 4-0 start, especially after a gut-check win last Saturday at Colorado when the Cougars dug an early 14-0 hole but eventually clawed back for a 24-21 win. Big, physical and brawling, especially on defense, the Cougs look exactly like the type of team that WVU should be avoiding at this stage of the rebuild, especially with injuries mounting on the Mountaineers’ side. Another thick group of defensive linemen are stuffing opposing runners; at just 76 yards per game, the Cougs are top ten nationally in rush defense in what looms as a mismatch vs. the underwhelming WVU offensive line. Freshman QB Bear Bachmeier has made the late departure of last year’s QB Jake Retzlaff (now with Tulane) a non-issue, avoiding mistakes (six TD passes vs. zero picks thus far). He adds a bruising ground dimension to a BYU offense that runs more than 60% of the time and highlights slashing RB LJ Martin (already 400 rushing yards), well on his way to a 1000-yard season. Also featured is one of the Big 12’s most accomplished receivers, senior Chase Roberts, a disciplined route-runner and Bachmeier’s favorite target.
In all, it’s been 15 quarters of near-flawless football from Kalani Sitake’s team. Save for that first quarter last week at Boulder (from which the Cougars recovered), they’ve outscored foes 151-16 this season, with three covers in four tries. Included was also a dominant 34-13 win at East Carolina on Sept. 20, a game in which many thought BYU could be vulnerable. This looks like it could get ugly, and with a trio of wins by 21 or more points, this spread is hardly daunting for the Cougars. As we expect BYU to do almost all of the scoring; staying below that high 40s total might also be worth a look in a game that has a Cougar blowout written all over it.
The college coaching carousel is already spinning, with another coach seeming to fall off every week (UCLA’s DeShaun Foster, Virginia Tech’s Brent Pry, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy and Arkansas’ Sam Pittman have already walked the plank). Some in the Mountain West believe that Jay Norvell at Colorado State could be the next to go, though regional observers say any change likely comes after Dec. 1, when Norvell’s buyout reportedly drops to zero. Rams fans are already begging the school to hit the eject button sooner after a slow start by CSU, reaching a nadir last week at Fort Collins in an uninspiring 20-3 loss to future Pac-12 rival Washington State... the same Washington State that had just allowed 59 points in consecutive weeks in its two previous losses.
Criticism of Norvell might seem harsh, as he did steer last year’s Rams to eight wins and a berth in the Arizona Bowl, but once there, a comprehensive 43-17 defeat administered by Miami-Ohio left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. The program has slipped back into mediocrity, confirmed by a last-minute escape vs. Northern Colorado earlier in September. The boo-birds have been out at Canvas Stadium and let third-year QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi (only one TD pass this season) have it vs. UTSA before he was pulled for backup Jackson Brousseau. The passing game, supposedly Norvell’s strength, ranks only 100th nationally. At only 15.2 PPG, the Rams rank a lowly 129th in scoring. The effort has been there from the defense, but it might take the 1985 Chicago Bears to compensate for this sluggish offense.
Speaking of the 1985 Bears, San Diego State has been posting surprisingly comparable defensive numbers, already blanking two foes (Stony Brook and Cal) and allowing just 3 points to Northern Illinois in a slow-paced win at DeKalb last week. Defense has never been the Aztecs’s calling card, but new coordinator Rob Aurich is making very good use of an uncommon 10 returning starters to confound all enemies not named Washington State, which scored 36 of the 39 points allowed by SDSU.
This defense-first look is also a bit foreign to head coach Sean Lewis, a career OC who is still trying to jump-start the Aztecs’ offense in his second year on the job. There have been hints of progress with Michigan transfer QB Jayden Denegal, though he’s only exceeded 200 passing yards in the Stony Brook opener. Yet the Aztecs’ 34-0 shocker over Cal on Sept. 20 is by far the most impressive effort either of these sides has produced this season. Given that it seems as if the CSU situation is one we want to avoid, we’d rather lay the price (as long as it stays beneath a TD) with the Aztecs and their defense, which also makes the Under look quite intriguing.
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