Jason Radowitz shares his two best bets in College Football for Friday September 20 featuring a rivalry and two AP Top 25 ranked teams.
Week 4 of the College Football season is underway. Last week, I took Houston +9 in their Friday match-up against Washington State and cashed a winner. This week, there’s two popular games that I have my eyes on. I’m going to take a look at Utah @ USC and Air Force @ Boise State. Both of these games will be played at 9pm EST on Friday. Utah/USC will be on ESPN and Air Force/Boise State will be on ESPN 2.
(10) Utah @ USC 9pm EST
The Utah Utes have started the season 3-0 after defeating Idaho State 31-0. In their first three games, Utah has allowed under 10 points a game and just 240 yards defensively. Their offense has been clicking too. They’ve averaged 32 points and 440 yards per game on offense. The offense is led by quarterback Tyler Huntley and running back Zack Moss who have combined for eight touchdowns in the first three games of the season accumulating near 1000 yards on offense between the two.
USC (2-1) lost their first game of the season against BYU in overtime on the road. Before that victory, USC had a promising victory over Stanford winning by 25 points. USC starting QB JT Daniels is out for the season with a knee injury leaving this season up to Kedon Slovis, who has been pretty good. He’s thrown for 715 yards passing and has five touchdowns. However, he’s also added four interceptions to his stat sheet.
Slovis made some mistakes in the game against BYU. Those mistakes might’ve cost USC last week’s game. He’ll learn from them and move on. In this Pac-12 match-up, the home team has won the last six games. USC is getting 3.5 points as a home underdog. And you might look at Utah beating BYU 30-12 and USC losing to BYU in OT and say, there’s no way USC can win this game. It’s a home game for USC where the public is going to bang the money on Utah. I would never say to not roll with the public but in this instance, a pac-12 rivalry game is going to be close. Give me the points.
Air Force @ (20) Boise State 9pm EST
Air Force (2-0) is coming off an impressive win against Colorado in overtime. They run an option attack with an interesting passing game mixed in. The offense is led by quarterback Donald Hammond and runningback Kadin Remsberg who ran for 146 yards on the ground against Colorado. The run game accumulated 289 yards against the Buffaloes last week. Air Force is usually big with time of possession, holding a plus-nine edge last week. Even with a high time of possession, Air Force is averaging 39 points a game and allowing just 15. Their first opponent was Colgate. If Air Force can put together another complete game against Boise State, they’ll have a chance for their second upset win in as many weeks.
Boise State (3-0) is coming off a dominating performance against Portland State, winning 45-10 behind Hank Bachmeier, the quarterback. The freshman quarterback has thrown an interception in each of his three games this season. He’ll need to limit the turnovers and play well as Air Force might be their biggest test to date for Boise State.
Air Force is sneaky with their throwing attempts but their ground game is what they’re known for. Boise State has serious depth on their defensive front. That’ll be an interesting battle, especially in the red zone. Boise State allows just over 100 rushing yards a game, which is above average in college football.
What that said, I like Boise State to win this game -8.5. Air Force will get stuck in the red zone and miss out on opportunities to score enough points to beat Boise State. Boise State’s offense has been rolling and that won’t stop against Air Force.
