Gildan New Mexico Bowl Spooky Express Bowling for Dollars

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SELECTION AND ANALYSIS THREAD

GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL

 

UTAH STATE vs UTEP

Saturday, Dec. 20, 2:20 p.m. ET

ESPN

 

 

It's that time of the year again. Christmas is near and the college football regular season has officially come to a close. This means one thing: it's time for some bowl game action. This year features a whopping 39 bowl games to choose from, and we're covering them all. One of the opening day bowls will include a matchup between the Utah State Aggies and the UTEP Miners. Both teams had some solid wins this year, and earned a bid into the Gildan New Mexico Bowl. This game kicks off on Saturday, December 20th at 2:20pm EST, and will be aired on ESPN. Let's take a more in-depth look at the matchup and give our prediction and pick.

 

Before we get to the picks, let's give a bit of background on the two teams. The Aggies enter this game with a 9-4 record, and finished with a 6-2 conference record in the Mountain West. The Miners on the other side finished at 7-5, with a 5-3 record in Conference USA, and open this game up as a big underdog to the talented Aggies.

 

Utah State Bounce Back Game

 

Utah State didn't exactly finish the year on a high note, losing to Boise State by a score of 50-19, but they were as hot as you can get before that, winning five games in a row, and allowing an average of just 13 points per game. Their defense was simply firing on all cylinders, and they are actually the 21st best in the entire country in points allowed per game at 20.8. If you want to look at some motivation for the Aggies, just look at the fact that they gave up that 50-point effort to the Broncos in the final game, and you should fully expect that they could be looking for a major bounce back effort.

 

First UTEP Bowl Game Since 2010

 

For the Miners, they had an up and down season, but were strong enough on the year to earn their first bowl bid since 2010. This is actually just their fifth bowl since 2000, and their impressive turnaround from a 2-10 record last year to a 7-5 record this year is a hot topic around town currently. This is a UTEP team riding emotion and excitement heading into this bowl game, and a win would be their first time reaching eight victories since 2005. UTEP is led by their talented sophomore running back Aaron Jones, who actually ranks 23rd in the nation in terms of rushing yards per game at 112.1. In total, he ran for 1,233 yards with 11 touchdowns. He also caught three touchdowns, and will be a focal point of this offense.

 

Now, it's time to get to the pick for this one, and while Utah State has a ridiculously talented defense, I don't believe UTEP will give away too much here. Senior quarterback Jameill Showers has only five interceptions on the year, and three of them came in one tough game. Add in the fact that the Miners are likely to focus in on giving Jones the ball as much as possible, and I think we see UTEP keep this one close right down to the finish. We have Utah State winning by about a touchdown. Not a strong play at this time but I'll take the big points and assess my selection closer to kickoff.

 

UTEP

Check back closer to game day for any changes to the spread and/or total prediction here and at the Spooky Express