We spoke in depth about the MAC and their struggles vs top teams and just plainly they are not very good. The Mountain West plays against the PAC 12 which is the #2 conference behind SEC, and Utah State played 2 teams out of that conference losing both games by less than a TD combined. Northern Illinois played Iowa out of the Big Ten and then ran through their cup cake schedule in the MAC before facing an actual defense in the championship game and their defense was exposed. Northern Illinois defense is a real weakness and Utah State is balanced on offense and defense, but the big key here is Utah State's strength in run defense vs. Northern Illinois rushing offense which ranked 4th, so lets take you through that, but before we do it's worth noting that the Mac faced off against the Mountain West conference and were favorites, but Buffalo was flat out dominated by San Diego State.
Northern Illinois ranked 4th in rushing 16th in run play % making it easy for any defense to come up with a game plan to defeat them. Stop the run, which is something Utah State is ranked 10th in yards allowed and 3rd in yards per carry allowed. Northern Illinois schedule makes it no surprise why they were so good running the ball, but Jordan Lynch still deserves credit, but in the big game of the year he made mistakes throwing the ball. Northern Illinois faced 1 top 50 rushing defense, and they faced 5 that were ranked 112th or worse. Iowa only won 30-27, but Iowa lacks offensive balance and playmakers which is something Utah State has more of even without their star QB Chuckie Keeton.
Utah State should be able to contain Lynch with star LB Jake Doughty and Zach Vigil. This rushing defense was legit as they did not allow a single rushing offense over 3.75 ypc and they faced a ton of talented running games with 5 in the top 30 and 8 in the top 50 in rushing ypc. Opponents had only 8 rushing touchdowns and it's no surprise that their red zone defense and third down defense were just flat out dominant allowing 32% and 41% in the red zone for TD percentage. This rushing defense faced 3 top 30 rushing offenses from a ypc perspective in their last 3 games and they held them to 1.12 ypc, 0.97 ypc and 1.60 ypc. That's just dominant and we saw against Bowling Green that Jordan Lynch could not throw and beat a solid pass defense which Utah State also has. Utah State ranked 22nd in opposing QB rating, 21st in opposing QB pass completion %, 24th in sack % and 41st in yards per attempt.
The offenses are a wash statistically which should surprise you considering the defenses that you face in the MAC which to me means Utah State has the better offense and we already know they have the better defense. Utah State is 12-3 ATS in their last 15 non conference games while Northern Illinois is 3-10-1 ATS in their last 14 neutral site games while this game will be held in San Diego which is much closer for Utah State.
