Sports Cappers Picks

Wichita St has quietly won seven straight games after losing to Pittsburgh back in late November. The Shockers are a very good team, and they play on a very strong home court. And their home court will be a difficult test for a Texas Tech team that hasn’t played in a tough road game yet this season. Their last road game was an in-state game at TCU where most of the fans were rooting for the Red Raiders. "It's not going to be that way in Wichita," head coach Pat Knight said. "Playing in that atmosphere is going to be tough, but we have to. We’ve got to start playing in some hostile environments; just putting ourselves on the butcher’s block will help us, I think, when we play on the road in the Big 12.”

The Shockers will be looking to avenge a 72-69 loss at Texas Tech last season. The game was tied with less than a minute left to play, but Tech made the shots at the end. And Wichita St has been waiting for the re-match tonight. "It's been in the back of our heads since last year, because we felt we could have won that game," WSU junior J.T. Durley said. "We took a lot of games this year, in the non-conference, personal."

Play WICHITA ST ( - ).

Central Florida’s offense struggled mightily when they stepped-up in class this season. The Knights played six teams that are also playing in a bowl game this year. They only averaged 13 points while gaining 262 yards of total offense in those games. And facing a strong Rutgers defense tonight will not make things any easier for the UCF offense.

The Knights have played solid defense this year. They allow only 21 points per game (versus teams that average 27 ppg), and 350 yards of offense (versus teams that average 390 ypg). Overall, Central Florida allows just 5.2 yards per play (versus teams that average 5.6 yppl).

Rutgers has played below average football on offense this season. The Scarlet Knights are averaging 28 points per game, but that number looks a lot better than it actually is. Against the four bowl teams they faced this year, Rutgers only averaged 22 points and 295 yards of offense per game. Overall on offense, Rutgers is averaging only 5.1 yards per play (versus teams that allow 5.8 yppl). And their best wide receiver, Tim Brown, is a game-time decision with a bad ankle sprain. Without him, Rutgers is really limited with what they can do on offense, and they’ll focus heavily on running the football if he doesn’t play.

Defensively, Rutgers has played pretty well. They are only allowing 17 points per game (versus teams that average 22 ppg). Their run defense has been excellent holding teams to just 109 yards per game on 3.2 yards per carry. And their passing defense is only allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete 56% of their passes. Overall, their defense allows just 4.9 yards per play.

Both teams have better defenses than offenses. And both teams are much better at running the ball which keeps the clock rolling and limits offensive possessions making this a low-scoring game.

Play UNDER the total.

Wyoming is ecstatic to be playing in this bowl game. The Cowboys haven’t been to a bowl game since 2004, and none of the current roster or coaching staff has been to bowl at Wyoming. And in order to make this game, they had to win a dramatic 17-16 game at Colorado St in their final regular season game. Since winning that game, this team has been excited about playing again and their practices have been lively and spirited.

Head coach Dave Christensen has plenty of experience in getting a team ready for a bowl game. He’s been part of seven bowl games with three different teams in his coaching career, and those teams have gone 5-2. So Christensen knows what it takes to win these games, and that experience cannot be overlooked.

Fresno St has played in 9 bowl games under head coach Pat Hill. But the Bulldogs haven’t had too much success as they are just 4-5 in those games. And in those nine games, the underdog is a perfect 9-0 ATS and they’ve actually won the last 8 SU. Fresno has also been much better when they play in the underdog role as well (3-2 ATS this year), and not as good as a favorite so their previous bowl history has some merit.

Even though Fresno went 7-1 down the stretch, the Bulldogs were out-yarded in their final five games. So they were winning some games they shouldn’t have, and it’s no surprise they only went 1-2 ATS as a favorite in those games. Their defense is atrocious as they allow over 400 yards per game on a whopping 6.6 yards per play; that statistical profile makes them a bad double digit favorite.

Wyoming’s offense has moved the ball well on bad defenses this season. They’ve scored 30 points or more in 4 games this year, and in all four of those games they faced horrible defensive teams like Fresno. Wyoming should score their share of points today and keep this game close throughout.

Play WYOMING ( + ).

As the season winds down, the pressure continues to mount for the undefeated teams. The Colts felt that pressure on Thursday night as they were in a back-and-forth game with Jacksonville before escaping with a close, 4-point win. And tonight, the Saints find themselves in a similar situation as they look to remain unbeaten.

New Orleans has been feeling the pressure for awhile now as they’ve covered just two of their last seven games. Even though the Saints have won those seven games, five of those wins have come by 10 points or less with four of the wins coming by just 8, 5, 3, and 3 points. So it’s hard to imagine this team winning by a big margin going forward, especially when facing a decent team like the Cowboys.

Dallas enters this game off back-to-back losses, so they are in desperate need of a win. Despite losing those two games to the Giants and Chargers, the Cowboys actually out-yarded both teams. Their passing game has been putting up some big numbers all season; they throw for 263 yards per game on 7.7 yards per pass attempt. Over the last three games, they’ve thrown for 299, 379, and 239 which shows they are in good current form as well.

The Cowboys will be facing a New Orleans’ secondary that has struggled defending the pass over the last couple of weeks. The Saints allowed 367 passing yards to the Redskins and 303 yards to the Falcons last week. And the Cowboys certainly have a better passing attack than either of those two teams so the Saints will once again be in a close game because they will not be able to limit big plays made by Dallas through the air.

Play COWBOYS ( + ).