4. Utah State at Boise State
LINE Boise State -17
ATS PICK Utah State
Here’s the other funky thing about Rivalry Week – sometimes one side has bigger fish to fry.
Utah State has been solid.
It pulled up out of the ugly 1-5 nosedive to start the season to win five out of its last six games to get bowl eligible. Granted, it beat Air Force and four uggos to do it, but it pulled it off. Now it’s time to cement a bowl appearance with a seventh win, close out strong, and possibly beat the eventual Mountain West champion.
I have to be more careful when I say teams don’t care or a game doesn’t matter. Of course Boise State wants to win this. As Herm said, you play to win the game, it’s on a nice roll of six straight Mountain West wins, and it would like to go off to the conference championship game with some momentum.
Oh yeah, the Mountain West Conference Championship. Boise State is already in, and it’s hosting.
That means 1) this is sort of Senior Day, but not really since there’s one final home game to play, and 2) nah, this game doesn’t matter all that much. What does matter is Boise State being healthy and ready to roll in a short week with the bigger game coming up on Friday.
That, and again, Utah State is playing well, Boise State doesn’t have a realistic shot at the New Year’s Six bowl game, so all can be forgiven if the coaching staff doesn’t want to show Fresno State anything interesting.
Boise State should win this, but the 17 is too rich.
Fine, since I’m Mr. Mountain West, here’s the other conference game …