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College Football Point Spreads: BYU at UNLV

Written October 9, 2009 by Kyle Hunter

Brigham Young has had one big slip up in an otherwise very impressive season thus far. UNLV’s football program is in a state of flux and the Rebels are just 2-3 on the season. Last season UNLV was huge underdogs and nearly upset BYU at BYU. Can they push BYU at home this season? If you bet college football and don’t already have an account at BetUS you can sign up with them now and get a $500 match bonus!

Brigham Young is led by its very talented quarterback Max Hall. Hall has shown flashes of his brilliance this season, but he has also made far more mistakes than the coaches would like to see. Last season Hall finished with a 35 to 14 touchdown to interception ratio, but this season he has just 11 touchdowns to 10 interceptions. The completion percentage is still terrific at 68%, but the mistakes need to go down. The Cougars aren’t just a one dimensional team though, thanks to a very strong running game. Their leading rusher, Harvey Unga, averages over 6 yards per carry. The offense as a whole averages 34.6 points per game, so they are certainly doing something right. The defense of the Cougars has played pretty well in every game except for their thrashing at the hands of Florida State, where they were gashed for 313 yards rushing. Overall BYU has played well this season, but they certainly have areas where they could improve.

For the UNLV football team things have gotten pretty ugly already this season. Last weekend they were beaten 63-28 by a Nevada team that has struggled mightily most of the season. In their last 3 games the defense has given up an average of 42 points, which clearly won’t get the job done. For the season UNLV is giving up 202 yards rushing per game, which could spell big trouble against the strong line from BYU. On the offensive side of the ball Channing Trotter has run the ball pretty well for UNLV and Omar Clayton has thrown for a lot of yardage, but they have failed to take good care of the football. The bottom line is the UNLV offense has been decent, but with the way their defense has played they are going to have be unstoppable to get wins.

The line opened up at BYU -14, but has since moved to BYU -17 according to the latest NCAA football lines. The posted total for this game has been set at over/under 63 points. BYU is actually just 4-9 against the spread in their last 13 games. UNLV is just 1-4 against the spread in their last 5 games. The common statistic between these two is that the game generally goes over the posted total. In BYU’s last 7 games, 5 have gone over the total. In UNLV’s last 5 games, 4 have gone over the posted total.

With the way the UNLV defense is playing it is fairly easy to see the Cougars offense having an absolute field day in this one. Max Hall and crew may put up 40-50 by themselves, so the over certainly looks like a pretty good wager. If UNLV can’t stop Wyoming or Hawaii what makes us think they’ll be able to stop BYU? Expect this one to turn ugly fairly quickly unless UNLV shows up as a different team on Saturday evening.

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