Minnesota gets 2 extra days of rest and preparation while Fresno played USC late on Saturday, but will host MInnesota here in what should be a challenging travel situation for Minnesota, but I believe we are getting some betting value as Minnesota struggled against an FCS opponent last week. South Dakota State is the #3 FCS team and Minnesota returns 90% of their offensive and defensive production that beat a Fresno State team last year by 7. Fresno State returns just 9 starters, and I know that teams returning 9 or fewer starters this year went 10-1 ATS last week, but that's such a small sample size, and when you lose this much production as an Group of 5 team you will struggle especially when you are going to be dealing with inflated numbers all year long. Fresno State is the first team going back 10 years to have consecutive seasons with 10 wins ATS. Their had only been 3 teams to win 20 in 2 years, and 6 more who won 19, and those teams the following year went just 41-63 ATS.
Fresno State was right in the game last year against Minnesota, and I believe Minnesota won't take them lightly and this is very much a business trip. The other thing to factor in is Minnesota did not have their star RB Rodney Smith as he got hurt after 1 carry last year. They also had a very different QB in Anextad, and Tanner Morgan has played much better and really opens this offense up. He averaged 9.2 yards per pass attempt compared to 6.9 by Anexstad, and Minnesota has a tandem of WR in Tyler Johnson and RAshad Bateman who are the best duo at Minnesota at receiver in over a decade.
Fresno State lost their QB in McMaryion and I know Jorge Reyna has some grit, and is supposed to be better, but he is relying on a completely new group of receivers, and is very mistake prone to start. I think it's asking a lot of Fresno to keep covering spreads, and this is supposed to be a down year while Minnesota should be up it just did not show up last week against a very good FCS team. Minnesota went on the road to the PAC 12 in 2017 as a 3 point dog and won 48-14 at Oregon State under PJ Fleck so I'm confident he'll have this team ready.
