Boise St. vs

Washington

at Las Vegas
Sat, Dec 21
4:30 PM Pacific
Rotation:
Odds: Washington -3, Total: 50

Game Analysis

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Washington (-3)  26   Boise State  23

Saturday, December 21 – 2:30 pm Pacific

The story here is that Washington head coach Chris Peterson has decided that this will be the last game he coaches, which fittingly is coming against the school that gave him his first coaching job. Peterson has great for Boise State and he did a great job turning around the Huskies, recording 3 straight double-digit win seasons for the predictable decline this season. Washington is better than their 7-5 record, as their 5 losses were by an average margin of just 5.2 points while all 7 of the Huskies’ victories were by 12 points or more and they are rightfully favored in this game.

Washington’s offense was really inconsistent this season as former Georgia quarterback bust Jacob Eason had 6 games averaging 8.9 yards per pass play or more and 5 games averaging 5.5 yppp or less. Overall, Eason was 0.9 yppp better than average (7.1 yppp against teams that would allow 6.2 yppp to an average quarterback) and the Huskies’ offense was 0.4 yards per play better than average. However, their two best offensive players, TE Hunter Bryant and LT Trey Adams, are sitting this game out to not risk injury before the NFL draft. Adams is a 1st-Team All-Pac 12 player and Bryant (also 1st-Team All-P12) led the Huskies was 10.4 yards per target this season and is worth 1.3 points (I valued Adams at 0.5 points). Washington is really close to average offensively without those two key performers and they should struggle some against a good Boise State defense that is good defending the run (0.4 yprp better than average) and the pass (0.8 yppp better than average). My math projects 345 yards at modest 5.4 yppl for Washington in this game.

Boise’s offense also figures to struggle, as the Broncos have been just 0.1 yards per play better than average offensively this season (6.2 yppl against teams that would allow 6.1 yppl). The Broncos are better with Hank Bachmeier at quarterback (0.9 yppp better than average) but Jaylon Henderson (-0.1 yppp rating) has started the last 4 games and coach Bryan Harsin would only say that Bachmeier is available to play and hinted that all 3 quarterbacks would play (Chase Cord started 2 games and is 0.6 yppp worse than average). I decided to simply use the Broncos’ overall pass rating rather than trying to guess how much each quarterback plays. Washington’s defense was not as dominating as it’s been in recent years but the Huskies are still 1.0 yppl better than average defensively, allowing just 20.4 points per game and 5.3 yppl to a schedule of teams that would combine to average 31.3 points and 6.3 yppl against an average defensive team. This is easily the best defense that Boise has faced this season and the math projects only 347 yards at 5.0 yppl for the Broncos in this game.

Overall, the math projects the total yards about even with Boise running 6 more plays from scrimmage, but the Huskies have really good special teams units and are projected to win by 4.1 points with a total of 48.9 points (good weather conditions factored in). Boise is 26-12 ATS as an underdog in their history, including 7-2 in bowl games (2-0 under Harsin) but Washington players that are playing should be motivated to send their coach out with a win over his former team. I’m staying away from this game.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Boise St.
  • Washington
BOIS
Offense
Defense

Rush

  • Run Plays 37.2 29.1
  • Run Yards 165.8 118.8
  • YPRP 4.8 4.8




Pass





  • Pass Comp 21.8 18.7
  • Pass Att 33.7 31.3
  • Comp % 64.6% 59.8%
  • Pass Yards 267.8 230.5
  • Sacks 2.3 3.0
  • Sack Yards 13.1 20.9
  • Sack % 6.5% 8.8%
  • Pass Plays 36.0 34.4
  • Net Pass Yards 254.7 209.6
  • YPPP 7.1 6.1

Total

  • Total Plays 73.3 63.4
  • Total Yards 433.6 349.2
  • YPPL 5.9 5.5

TO


  • Int 0.8 0.6
  • Int % 2.3% 1.9%
  • Fumbles 0.4 1.1
  • Turnovers 1.2 1.7
 
  • Points 36.8 20.6
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