College Football Betting: Army at Hawaii

At this point in the college football season most of the focus is on the teams battling for a potential BCS title, a high profile bowl bid or other superlatives. At the other end of the spectrum there are the bottom feeders that are likely anxious to get things over with and focus on improving next year. Two such teams will meet at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu on Saturday as the hometown Hawaii Rainbows host the Army Black Knights. Army is 3-7 on the year with wins against overmatched Morgan State, Louisiana Tech and Eastern Michigan. Hawaii is winless on the year though they came close last week, falling in overtime at Wyoming.

Army lost talented quarterback Trent Steelman to graduation and while junior quarterback Angel Santiago has looked OK running the option against Morgan State there was a significant drop off in performance against Ball State. The Black Knights have also lost playmaking running back Larry Dixon to a wrist injury. Most significant, however, is Army’s pointspread troubles in recent season. 14-20 ATS overall since 2011. An even bigger issue has been their play away from West Point–on the road the Black Knights are 0-14 SU/1-13 ATS since 2011. The only game they have covered in this timeframe was in a 24-14 loss at Air Force in 2011 where they took the money as +16′ point underdogs. This is an especially tough road matchup due to the 10 hours of travel and the team might treat this more as a holiday than anything else. The last–and most important–challenge on the Army schedule this season is the 12/14 rivalry game against Navy but there’s enough lead time before that to regain focus.

Hawaii is looking to avoid a winless season and given Army’s struggles on the road they’ve got a great opportunity to get their first victory. They’ve improved significantly since the return of running back Joey Iosefa who missed the first eight games of the season after suffering an offseason foot injury. The Rainbows don’t have a ton of playmakers but just by establishing a solid running game they should get the win and cover over a poor traveling Army side.

BET HAWAII -6′ OVER ARMY