Las Vegas Bowl BYU vs Arizona
The BYU Cougars are making their fourth straight appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl, and on Saturday they’ll be playing a team that is making its first post-season excursion in ten years when they line up against the Arizona Wildcats (7-5 SU & ATS) in NCAA college football sports betting action that is set to kick off at 8 PM ET at Sam Boyd Stadium (artificial turf).
BetUS NCAA Football Betting Odds: ARIZONA -3, Total 61.5
Here are some of the NCAA college football betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
* BYU has covered one of its last eight games
* BYU has won 20 of its last 22 games SU
* BYU has played four of its last five games OVER the total
* ARIZ has covered 11 of its last 16 games
As mentioned, BYU is a veteran when it comes to this bowl and is going to the Las Vegas Bowl for the fourth straight year. Some of the pundits have talked about how this may be a “stale” moment for the Cougars, and indeed, they were expecting something much better at the start of the season. There was speculation they could be the non-BCS team that made it into the Bowl Championship Series. Instead, that honor went to fellow Mountain West contender Utah, which went undefeated and thumped BYU to the tune of 48-24 in the season’s final game.
Both of these teams have coordinators who have worked under Mike Leach at Texas Tech – Robert Anae of BYU and Sonny Dykes of Arizona, so there shouldn’t be many secrets for either of these teams on defense. Both squads put up rather similar stats, although it bears mentioning that Arizona has a bit more balance in its offensive attack with Nic Grigsby who was a 1000-yard rusher who is joined by freshman Keola Antolin, providing the ground component. That is not to say BYU can’t run it when they have to – their top running back, Harvey Unga, topped the thousand-yard plateau as well.
Even though we respect Arizona’s signal-caller, Willie Tuitama, the Cougars can get the ball downfield with a little more versatility. Max Hall, who completed 70% of his passes this year, has one of the nation’s best wide receivers at his disposal in Austin Collie, who caught 95 passes for 1419 yards and was just named a second-team All-American by the Associated Press. Arguably, some kind of AP honor should have gone to BYU tight end Dennis Pitts, who led the nation at his position with 1025 yards, but his counterpart in this game, Rob Gronkowski received third-team AP recognition instead.
BYU’s critics say that they ran up scores gratuitously, and failed when it came to the best teams on their schedule – TCU (a 32-7 loss) and Utah (the 48-24 defeat). The Cougars beat two bowl teams: 6-6 Colorado State (45-42) and Air Force, who they beat by two TD’s. Arizona beat California in mid-season, and kept it close with USC (17-10), Oregon State (19-17) and Oregon (55-45), but were also dumped by lesser teams in New Mexico and Stanford.
For Arizona, this is an important reward because it is the first time any of these players have gotten to a bowl game and they are understandably excited. I see this differently than most observers. The pressure on coach Mike Stoops was to make a bowl game this year or get fired. Well, he got his bowl game, and his extension, and the Wildcats finished the year with a 31-10 win over fading Arizona State, their bitter rival. They have achieved something that they will be happy with, regardless of this outcome. But the Cougars will be in an angry mood, and have this routine down pat. There is nothing new to surprise them, not even the opponent, who has been on the schedule for the past two seasons. We like BYU’s offensive arsenal and experience better and will gladly take the points with the Cougars, the three-point underdog in the BetUS NCAA college football bowl sports betting odds.
