Saturday Bowl Betting Preview
Tags: Sportsbetting, Collegefootball

A quick look at all six games on the first full day of games during bowl season.

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Boca Raton Bowl

Western Kentucky vs Appalachian State

Saturday, 11am, ESPN

App State -3/Total 67

I wonder if the total is so low for this game because there were questions over whether or not Western Kentucky OC Zach Kittley would coach the bowl game before leaving to take the same job at Texas Tech. All indications are he’ll be coaching Saturday and the over feels like a good spot here. The Western Kentucky offense was held under 35 points against FBS opponents one time this year. Bailey Zappe needs four touchdown passes to hit 60 for the year and 455 yards to hit 6,000. The former number is doable, he has seven 4+ TD games this season, but the latter seems less likely. App State is all around solid in every aspect on offense and defense. They have a two-headed running back monster in Nate Noel and Camrun Peoples that combined for 1,900 yards and have a 3,000 yard passer in Chase Brice. App State will try and play keep away which could cause problems for the over here, but Western Kentucky isn’t a team that uses a lot of clock. They try to score fast. Bowl games can be total toss ups so a small underdog on the moneyline in these kinds of games are always a consideration. Western Kentucky is +130 on the moneyline as of this writing.

New Mexico Bowl

UTEP vs Fresno State

Saturday, 2:15pm, ESPN

Fresno -11.5/Total 51.5

Keep your eye on the news with this game because if Jake Haener plays, Fresno State should be a two touchdown favorite in this game. I questioned Fresno’s motivation in this game without Haener and with head coach Kalen DeBoer taking the Washington job, but Haener ultimately decided not to return to Fresno (it’s a long saga that’s interesting for people into CFB minutiae) and now they’re being coy if he’s going to play or not. UTEP won three games from 2017–19, but were a respectable 3–5 last year and got to their first bowl game since 2014. That said, they took advantage of the soft part of their schedule and when they had to step up in weight class so to speak, they didn’t fare too well losing by 21 to UTSA and 17 to UAB, the two best teams they played. They’ll likely be very excited for this game so they’re live if Haener doesn’t play, but it’s hard to forecast because Fresno’s other quarterbacks threw a combined 21 passes this year.

Independence Bowl

UAB vs 13 BYU

Saturday, 3:30pm, ABC

BYU -7/Total 54.5

This is an interesting game because BYU has a lot of high profile wins so you’d assume they’d be a bigger favorite, but from an advanced numbers perspective they have some flaws. They went 5–0 against the Pac-12 this year and also beat Virginia. They lost to a bad Boise State team, but their other loss was a road loss at Baylor and there’s no shame in that. BYU has managed to be really efficient this year on offense despite losing Zach Wilson and playing a tougher schedule. They’re sixth in Football Outsiders’ offensive efficiency and 17th in offensive SP+. They also struggle to generate any non-turnover stops, ranking dead last in defensive bust drive. UAB is a fairly one dimensional offense that’s good at running the ball and struggles throwing it, but BYU’s defense hasn’t put up much resistance so I’m not sure how much UAB will be able to just grind out the game. UAB gave up 30+ to the best Group of Five offenses they faced this year UTSA and Liberty and BYU’s offense is better than both of those. BYU’s defensive issues may keep this closer than maybe it should be, but I like the over.

LendingTree Bowl

Eastern Michigan vs Liberty

Saturday, 5:45pm, ESPN

Liberty -9/Total 58.5

This is a sneaky game to handicap because on paper it looks like a mismatch and comes down to how much you feel like you can trust Liberty. The Flames’ best win was over UAB. They had a perplexing loss to Louisiana-Monroe and were largely non-competitive in their last three games of the season, albeit against good teams (Ole Miss, Louisiana and Liberty). Malik Willis’ efficiency dipped this year. His completion percentage was down and his interceptions were up. They’re also an undisciplined team when it comes to penalty ranking in the 100s in penalties and penalty yards per game. Eastern Michigan passes the ball decently and that’s pretty much all they do well. Ben Bryant is an accurate passer, completing almost 69 percent of their passes, but the Eagles are tied for 99th in yards per completion so there isn’t much explosiveness to their passing game. They don’t run the ball well (3.4 yards per carry) but they’re good at finishing drives with the short running game (25 rush TD). They don’t really stop the run well and their pass defense is a little bit better. If Liberty is motivated, they should roll, but unless Malik Willis just goes Superman with some NFL scouts watching him, it’s hard to see them being extremely motivated so I’m not eager to bet this game.

LA Bowl

Utah State vs Oregon State

Saturday, 7:30pm, ABC

Oregon State -7/Total 67.5

This is the rare non-major bowl game where both teams should be motivated and excited to be where they are. Oregon State hasn’t been in a bowl game since 2013. Utah State was picked to finish second last in their division and ended up winning the Mountain West. Throw in a fun location in a new NFL stadium and this has the makings of a fun event. Another interesting part of this game is that neither defense is particularly good at stopping what the other team does well on offense. Logan Bonner threw for over 3500 yards, had 36 touchdowns and is a respectable 28th in the country in pass efficiency. The Aggies are 11th in EPA per pass play. Oregon State is 65th in pass efficiency defense, 82nd in pass EPA per play defense and are 125th in sack rate. Utah State gave up 6.1 yards per carry in a loss to BYU and 362 rushing yards in a loss to Wyoming. If they can’t stop BJ Baylor, who rushed for over 1,200 yards this year, it could be a long night for them. The Mountain West was 5–5 vs the Pac-12 this year so there’s reason for optimism this game may be close. The total went up five points from the opening line so if you like CLV, the over isn’t for you here, but I could still see it hitting.

New Orleans Bowl

23 Louisiana vs Marshall

Saturday, 9:15pm, ESPN

Louisiana -5/Total 55

The Saturday nightcap is a game between future conference rivals as Marshall travels to NOLA for what should be a de facto road game against Louisiana. It feels like Louisiana is in this game every year, and my hunch was partially correct. They played in it five times in six years. They got a tour of other bowl games under Billy Napier before returning to their roots. Speaking of Napier, he finally got the bigger job he’s been expected to get so the Cajuns will be led by their new head coach Michael Desormeaux, which is the most Louisiana name ever. If it’s possible to have a strange season that ended with a conference championship, the Cajuns had it. They’ve won 12 straight since the season-opening loss to Texas, were lackluster in a lot of wins, but managed to destroy Appalachian State and Liberty in the regular season and won the rematch with App State in the Sun Belt title game pretty easily. Louisiana runs the ball well behind a trio of good backs so no one player carries too much of the load. Levi Lewis is a rollercoaster at quarterback with good games and not so good ones seemingly back and forth most of the season. Marshall had an up-and-down year to get to 7–5 win. After the season opening win vs Navy their next best win was probably against North Texas so take that for what you will. They had a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter at App State and lost. Marshall’s chances in this game come down to Grant Wells and ball security. Wells completed 66 percent of his passes and had 3,400 yards, but also threw 12 picks. He had multiple picks in losses to Middle Tennessee and East Carolina. He got dinged up in the season finale against Western Kentucky, but appears on track to play in this game. This feels like a game Louisiana should cover. I don’t think the coaching change matters that much because they promoted from within and it’s pretty much a home game, that said they’re just 3–6 against the spread as favorites this year so their track record for showing up and playing well is spotty.