Boise State at New Mexico State

Written by Steve Janus

The No.3 Boise State Broncos will open up their conference portion of the schedule this week, as they will head to New Mexico State to take on the Aggies. The Broncos kept their National Championship hopes alive with a nice 37-24 win then No.24 Oregon State. The Broncos now must dominate the Western Athletic Conference the rest of the way to keep pace with the other top teams in the country. New Mexico State doesn’t figure to be much of a challenge this week, as they are 0-3 on the season and have lost 10 straight to the Broncos. If you are interested in making a wager on the game this weekend, the current college football odds have the Broncos favored by 43-points over the Aggies on the road.

Boise State (3-0, 0-0 WAC): It wasn’t exactly the dominating performance that a lot of people expected against Oregon State last week, as the Broncos went into the game nearly 16.5-point favorites over the Beavers. The Broncos really hurt themselves with penalties and poor special teams play last week, but still managed to win convincingly. Thanks to a 54-yard punt return by James Rodgers the Beavers were locked up with the Broncos 7-7 after a quarter of play, but Boise State poured on 17 points in the second quarter to take a 24-10 halftime lead. The Beavers got new life in the third quarter as they closed the game to 31-24 with a period to play, but the Broncos defense shutdown the Beavers in the final period and added two field goals to secure the win.

Quarterback Kellen Moore had another fine day throwing the football, as he completed 19 of 27 attempts for 288 yards and three touchdowns. Titus Young led the Broncos with five catches for 136 yards and a score, while Austin Pettis had four catches for 82 yard and a touchdown, and also got the Broncos on the board first with a six yard touchdown pass to Tommy Gallarda. Doug Martin ran for 138 yards on 19 carries, for his second straight 100 yard game. The Broncos figure to fill the stat sheet against New Mexico State this Saturday, as they could easily score 50+ points in this game.

New Mexico State (0-3, 0-0 WAC): Not only have the Aggies lost 10 straight to the Broncos, but they have lost 10 straight games overall dating back to last season. The last win for New Mexico State came against Utah State on Oct. 10 of 2009. The Aggies haven’t even been close in their first three games of the 2010 season, as they have lost by an average of 26 points a game. The offense has struggled to do much of anything and the defense has allowed nearly 42 points a game.

Last week against Kansas the Aggies managed just 275 yards of total offense, and the game was over by the end of the third quarter, as the Jayhawks had a 35-7 lead going into the final period of play. Quarterback Matt Christian completed 12 of 20 attempts against Kansas, including a nice 25-yard touchdown pass to Marcus Allen, but finished with just 147 yards. The only other touchdown the Aggies were able to manage came on a 96 yard kickoff return by D.J. Beshears. It does not look good at all for New Mexico State this weekend.

Looking at the Odds: While there is no question in my mind that the Broncos are going to win this game, covering a 43-point spread is a whole different story. The Broncos only beat New Mexico State 42-7 last year, but have beat the Aggies by at least 49 points in three of the past five seasons. Because Boise State is forced to run up the score to remain high in the rankings, I think you have to take the chances of them covering the spread this Saturday, but I would avoid this play if possible, as there are many more games that are much easier bets than this one. My final score prediction is Boise State 54, New Mexico State 10.

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