3 Mountain West Football Best Bets For Week 4

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A fourth quarter touchdown by Sacramento State last weekend prevented another weekend above .500, going 1-2 in last weekend’s best bets as a result. We are now 6-7 on the season — there’s nothing wrong with having to experience a little adversity, right?! It doesn’t matter how far we’re down, we’re still coming back for more — hoping to re-write our wrongs!

Let’s hop into this week’s version of Mountain West best bets, shall we?

All odds are courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Matt’s record: 6-7, -1.7 units

Georgia State -10 v. Northern Illinois (-112):

Skinny: The winless Northern Illinois Huskies cap off non-conference play this weekend with a road test against 2-1 Georgia State. Northern Illinois has lost road games to Iowa and Arizona by a combined 65 points (82-17), and even lost their home opener to Illinois State (28-24), the FCS runner up from a season ago.

Meanwhile, Georgia State stacked two wins against North Carolina A&T and Kennessaw State while losing 44-30 last weekend to UCF. Those two wins under first-year head coach Dell McGee are twice as many as last year alone, when they went 1-11.

Georgia State’s offense has been one of the most explosive in the G5 through three weeks, and the new-look Huskies defense hasn’t quite found its footing yet. Georgia State is No. 14 in the country in total offense (510.3 ypg) and T-7 in plays of 20-plus yards (22), buoyed by a hyper-efficient ground game led by dual-threat quarterback Cameran Brown and running back Lanear McCrary Jr. Furthermore, the Panthers are top-50 in both EPA/play in the air and on the ground, and have dominated on early downs, ranking No. 38 nationally in EPA/play in those situations.

The Huskies rank outside the top-100 in EPA/play against the pass, rush and on early downs, respectively. Georgia State’s defense, which was one of the worst in the country last year, has been better, but still not great. Though NIU hasn’t been able to move the ball all that efficiently through three weeks, even though Georgia State will likely be its easiest test so far.

Still, with 10 being a key number, I think Georgia State’s efficient offense is enough to keep this a two-score game at home.

Hawai’i/Wyoming u44.5 (-110):

Skinny: Hawai’i enters the matchup 1-2 with a 29-19 win over New Mexico State two weekends ago. Wyoming lost a hard-fought 24-10 battle to Central Michigan last weekend after splitting their first two games against Colorado State (35-13 loss) and Northern Colorado (21-13 win).

I was big on Hawai’i heading into the season, betting their win total above 7.5. It was a bet on quarterback Micah Alejado, who led the MW in completions, touchdown passes and yards per game last year. Unfortunately, Alejado has been running for his life through three games; Hawai’i has surrendered eight sacks through three games, and frankly, that number probably should be much worse.

They haven’t been able to block or win the line of scrimmage at all, which is concerning in this matchup. Wyoming’s front seven hasn’t incredibly disruptive thus far, but they have still totaled 14.0 tackles-for-loss (3.0 sacks) through three games. I can’t trust Hawaii’s offense to win the line of scrimmage until further notice.

On the other side, Wyoming’s offense has still slogged through the mud — much like it did last year. They are running the ball more effectively, however, behind running backs Samuel Harris and Markell Holman and dual-threat quarterback Tyler Hughes. This is Hawaii’s first road game of the season. Wyoming is live to win this game outright, so I wouldn’t hate if you took the +3.5 or their +126 money line. But I think the under is the safer play, even though I wish I got the key number of 45.

Oregon State o34.5 points (-104) v. UTEP:

Skinny: Both of these teams are 1-2 entering this week’s matchup. However, Oregon State has still been the much better team through three games. They held their own against both Houston and Texas Tech, while absolutely smashing Montana (52-17) for their first win of the season last weekend.

For UTEP, they have lost two blowout games to Oklahoma and Michigan, while beating Texas Southern 51-10 in Week 2. So it’s kind of hard to get a good read on how they will do this weekend and moving forward, which is why I stayed away from the spread.

However, I will attack the Beavers’ team total over. They own the nation’s top aerial attack behind Mercer transfer Braden Atkinson. Oregon State leads the nation in passing yards per game (385.7) with nine passing touchdowns to just one interception. It ranks in the top-65 nationally in EPA/play on pass plays and early down EPA/play. This a bad matchup for the Miners, who have the fifth-worst EPA/play allowed on pass plays, despite ranking in the top-70 in passing yards allowed per game. Michigan and Oklahoma both ran the ball when they were up big — with plenty of success, too — swaying those numbers.

Even though this is a road matchup for Oregon State, I think their offense is efficient enough to put up 35 points, especially since they have played at the 13th-fastest tempo so far this season.

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