San Diego State -3 3.3% play
I think Rocky Long will be motivated to coach here heading back to New Mexico where he coached for 10 years. Also after losing back to back bowl games will go along way to determining this team’s effort. They lost 27-0 last season to Ohio, another MAC team, but take that game out and Rocky Long and San Diego State are 4-0 vs. MAC teams with a margin of victory of 12 points per game. I’ll be fully transparent. I am not high on the Mountain West at all, but the MAC is a slightly worse conference, and I believe we are getting a Central Michigan team that was exposed in the MAC Championship. They are an over achieving team, that went 1-5 vs. bowl teams. San Diego State meanwhile went 3-2 vs. bowl games, and they are in every game.
Central Michigan’s offense has to be able to run the ball. That’s the biggest key as they are averaging 5.84 ypc in wins, and 2.34 in losses. They are 1-5 when they’re held under 4 ypc, and have turned the ball over 16 times in those games. Their lone win was against Ball State by 1 point, and they had 6 rushing TD’s, against #91 run defense, averaging 3.39ypc, but were fortunate to win. San Diego State is #1 in run defense and their 3-3-5 is going to be a challenge for CMU’s offense early in this game. Expect San Diego State to have a +1 or +2 TO edge in this game, and teams who win the TO battle typically win the game.
San Diego State’s offense has struggled all year, and that’s because they put in a new offense, and those things take time. The extra practices can only help this offense, and going up against CMU who has been known to give up points to bad offenses should be in that situation once again. Take a look at Akron, New Mexico STate, and Bowling Green. They allowed all 3 of those offenses to score 8.33 ppg more than their season average. That would put San Diego State around 28 points in this game, which I do think they could get to, and that would allow them to cover this spread in my opinion.
SD State also has the edge in special teams by a wide margin as they rank 11th compared to Central Michigan’s 127th ranking.
