Both teams on a short week and that normally means trouble for a team going up against the triple option, but the Aztecs are in Air Force division they are used to the triple option and more importantly they won at Army facing the triple option already this season which was a nice warm up to this game.
First of all Air Force is really banged up with the possibility of 5 starters on defense missing this game they are already last in the nation in run defense and they gave up 9.2 yards per carry to Notre Dame and Ronnie Hillman ran for 191 yards vs. them last year. I think both teams come out and run the ball this will shorten the clock and that means a closer game. To me this game also comes down to turnovers and the Aztecs have 10 forced fumbles while the Falcons have -4 turnover margin they have the inability to force turnovers 10 less than the Aztecs and they continue to have problems fumbling the ball. They may run all over San Diego State and allow over 50% 3rd down conversions, but we have seen them do that before and still stay within a TD. I don't think Air Force is the team to blow any team out the way they hold onto the ball. They'd have to be nearly perfect in the red zone and they just haven't been this year. Their red Zone offense is 13 for 18 and I expect them to get stopped for FG like they did when they played TCU as they had 4 FG and 1 TD.
On the other side San Diego State has a balanced attack and they have faced a much stronger schedule this year playing vs. Michigan in non conference while Air Force has mixed it up with Tenn St and South Dakota where they gave up nearly 400 yards to each team and over 4 yards per carry. Bottom line the under dog is 7-3 ATS in their last 10 in the match up and Air Force is just 1-7 ATS in their last 8 conference games.
