Fresno State should be rusty in this game after getting their game postponed last week due to flooding in Colorado. The week before they played against Cal Poly and they opened in a barn burner against Rutgers. I don't see why all of a sudden this team should be favored against Boise State. Fresno State's defense has had a hard time getting off the field already this season allowing 6.09 yards per carry to Rutgers and allowing 172 rushing yards to Cal Poly. Boise comes in with a solid rushing game behind Jay Ajayi, but more importantly the Boise State offense is perfectly balanced with a veteran QB and a veteran solid group of receivers led by QB Joe Southwick and WR Matt Miller. Boise is running the ball 51% of the time and having plenty of success as Ajayi ran for 4TD's a week again against Air Force. Joe Southwick added an impressive 27-29 performance throwing for 287 yards and he's super accurate leading back to last year where he finished the year completing 70% of his passes over the final 4 games. Anyway you look at it he's a better QB than Rutgers Gary Nova who had 5 TD and 348 yards against Fresno State in week 1. Rutgers offense was ranked 106th last year in total yards and shredded the Fresno defense. Boise has the balanced attack to keep them on their toes and should be able to move the ball and score.
On the flip side Fresno is led by a one dimensional game and a very good QB in Derek Carr. However, they have yet to have a 100 yard rusher and Derek Carr has not played well against Boise in his career. We still don't know much about this team and I think this spread is very much inflated due to the fact that they put up 50+ points on a Rutgers defense that was excellent last year, but Rutgers defense was gutted only returning 3 starters and Boise is only going to get better on this side of the ball. Sure Washington put up big numbers, but playing at Washington (who had revenge from their bowl loss against Boise) is a different story than playing at Fresno where Boise has had a ton of success. The Boise secondary has had an interception in every game and I think that will be a key difference in this game. The fact that Fresno is also one dimensional will allow Boise to make some third down and red zone stops. I'll take the road team here tonight because Fresno has not done anything to impress me and I think Boise has enough on offense to win this game.
