Merry Christmas, everyone! Let's get one more win so we don't have to sell the toys under the tree.
Ok, the conventional wisdom is that SD St is the same as they are every year... outstanding defense and a crap offense that usually does just enough to win games. Well, y'all know Smitty doesn't just accept conventional wisdom. Apparently he also talks about himself in the 3rd person. Luckily for him, he's damn handsome.
Ok, SD St only gives up 335.4 yards/game (27th in the country) and 20.2 pts/game (21st). Yup, pretty good. Buuuuttt... let's take a closer look. In 6 of their 7 wins, they held their opponent to 14 points or less. Impressive. Hmmmm... but who were those opponents? National scoring rank in parentheses.
Idaho St (the bengals went 1-10 and averaged 13.7 points/game. not an offensive powerhouse.)
Toledo (43rd) Toledo picked up 376 yards of offense, but turned it over 4 times.
Hawai'i (115th)
Nevada (120th)
UNLV (77th) SD St once again forced 4 TO's to barely beat a bad UNLV team 14-10.
New Mexico (130th)
The did beat San Jose St, a team that was in the middle of a free-for-all, 43-27.
Now they get MTSU, which averages 29.2 pts/game. 60th in the country. Not stellar, but better than most of the teams SD St has beaten.
The Blue Raiders shocked everyone, beating Miami as a 25-pt dog. Well, we all saw how good Miami was this year. And MTSU promptly lost their next 3 games (in all fairness, those were against UTSA, UAB, and WKU, 3 of the better teams in C-USA.). They then rebounded to win 4 of their last 5, albeit not against a single bowl team.
As usual, I'm betting AGAINST a team, not ON a team. This is not a typical SD St team. I'll take the 7 points and a shot on the ML. And, just because I think their defense is really overrated this year, I'm going to take a shot at the over.
MTSU (+7) 4 units
MTSU (ML) 2 units to win 4.5
Over (46.5) 3 units
MTSU TT over (19.5, -120) 2 units
Bowl Record
Sides: 6-7 +1.0
ML: 3-3 +5.9
Totals: 11-7 +8.8
Ok, the conventional wisdom is that SD St is the same as they are every year... outstanding defense and a crap offense that usually does just enough to win games. Well, y'all know Smitty doesn't just accept conventional wisdom. Apparently he also talks about himself in the 3rd person. Luckily for him, he's damn handsome.
Ok, SD St only gives up 335.4 yards/game (27th in the country) and 20.2 pts/game (21st). Yup, pretty good. Buuuuttt... let's take a closer look. In 6 of their 7 wins, they held their opponent to 14 points or less. Impressive. Hmmmm... but who were those opponents? National scoring rank in parentheses.
Idaho St (the bengals went 1-10 and averaged 13.7 points/game. not an offensive powerhouse.)
Toledo (43rd) Toledo picked up 376 yards of offense, but turned it over 4 times.
Hawai'i (115th)
Nevada (120th)
UNLV (77th) SD St once again forced 4 TO's to barely beat a bad UNLV team 14-10.
New Mexico (130th)
The did beat San Jose St, a team that was in the middle of a free-for-all, 43-27.
Now they get MTSU, which averages 29.2 pts/game. 60th in the country. Not stellar, but better than most of the teams SD St has beaten.
The Blue Raiders shocked everyone, beating Miami as a 25-pt dog. Well, we all saw how good Miami was this year. And MTSU promptly lost their next 3 games (in all fairness, those were against UTSA, UAB, and WKU, 3 of the better teams in C-USA.). They then rebounded to win 4 of their last 5, albeit not against a single bowl team.
As usual, I'm betting AGAINST a team, not ON a team. This is not a typical SD St team. I'll take the 7 points and a shot on the ML. And, just because I think their defense is really overrated this year, I'm going to take a shot at the over.
MTSU (+7) 4 units
MTSU (ML) 2 units to win 4.5
Over (46.5) 3 units
MTSU TT over (19.5, -120) 2 units
Bowl Record
Sides: 6-7 +1.0
ML: 3-3 +5.9
Totals: 11-7 +8.8
