2. Hawaii at UCLA
LINE: UCLA -17.5
ATS PICK: UCLA
To continue with the hate-pick theme of Week 0 …
UCLA has yet to win a non-conference game in the Chip Kelly era. Worse yet, it’s 0-2 against the Mountain West.
Okay, but to be very, very fair, those six non-conference losses all came to teams that won ten games or more, two were to Cincinnati, and two were to Oklahoma. The combined final records of those six teams? 68-14.
Let’s just say the program has been building to this point.
Kelly needed to do a teardown after years of Bruin mediocrity, and it hasn’t been pretty with three straight losing seasons and a 10-21 record.
But now he appears to have the parts in place. The Bruins have the lines, they have the defense – despite a few meltdowns last year – and they have the experience on offense to finally get this thing going.
So what that the program hasn’t beaten a team by more than 17.5 since the middle of 2018?
This is a bit more about Hawaii.
– Week 1 College Football Expert Picks
It’s going to be active, it has the ability to get physical, and …
It still might be a bit flaky on the road.
It came up big in the New Mexico Bowl win over Houston, and it started last year with a stunning performance at Fresno State, but it clunked at Wyoming and got rolled by 24 at San Diego State.
This won’t be a blowout, but UCLA should be a bit more explosive and the D should hang on to save the spread late. It’s likely going to be a defensive battle, so …