College Football Betting: Fresno State at Wyoming
Mountain West action on Saturday’s college football card as Fresno State makes the long trip to Laramie to face the University of Wyoming Cowboys. The Bulldogs cruise in with a perfect 8-0 record and lead the MWC West with a perfect 5-0 record. Wyoming, meanwhile, has been up and down this year with a 4-4 record overall and 2-2 in conference. Fresno is coming off a 41-23 home field thrashing of overmatched Nevada though they failed to cover the pointspread as -21 point favorites. Wyoming has lost two straight and three of their last four games, though they were very competitive at San Jose State falling 51-44 and covering the pointspread as +10′ road underdogs.
Fresno State is a decent enough team but their quarterback gets most of the headlines. Derek Carr (brother of NFL signal caller David Carr) is one of the top ranked quarterbacks in college football and has been tabbed as a ‘can’t miss’ NFL prospect. He lost a lot of weapons from last season but so far has done a decent job despite that challenge. A bigger problem is on the defensive side of the ball where the 8-0 record has obfuscated the fact that Fresno is down defensively and particularly in the secondary. The Bulldogs rank a pitiful #112 in passing defense, allowing 276.4 yards per game.
That’s bad news here as they may be facing the best quarterback they’ve seen all season in Cowboys’ signal caller Brett Smith. Smith is a monster but has been lost in mix among a bumper crop of good quarterbacks out West (Carr, San Jose State’s David Fales and even BYU’s Taysom Hill). He should have a huge game against a porous Fresno State secondary that has already been shredded by lesser quarterbacks. A bigger problem for Fresno State could be the setting–Wyoming is coming off a bye week and catches the Bulldogs at their notoriously tough home field. Laramie is 7,165 feet above sea level but the altitude will only be one of Fresno’s problems here–this game starts at 7:15 PM Pacific meaning that it’ll be a cool, windy night in the Wyoming mountains. This series has favored the home team for the past few years with Fresno winning the last four meetings and California and Wyoming the last four meetings here. They’ll pull the outright upset on Saturday night.
BET WYOMING +10 OVER FRESNO STATE
