Game Analysis

Strong Opinion – San Jose State (-9)  35   NEVADA  20

San Jose State outplayed Air Force by 19 points from the line of scrimmage last week with 437 yards at 7.3 yards per play to just 302 yards at 4.1 yppl for the Falcons. Unfortunately, the normally careful Walker Eget (just 3 interceptions on 320 pass attempts entering the game) through 2 interceptions and the Spartans were -3 in turnovers despite being better in turnover margin than Air Force coming into the game. San Jose State was a good bet but a bad result last week and I still see some line value on the Spartans this week against a bad Nevada team.

Nevada is a mess on offense with 3 quarterbacks that have all played poorly. The Wolf Pack have averaged only 13.3 points against FBS opponents (and only scored 20 at home against FCS team Sacramento State). I expect more points from them in this game against a San Jose State defense that has been 0.6 yards per play worse than average. The Spartans are very good defending the run (0.6 yards per rushing play better than average) and I don’t think that Nevada is capable of taking advantage of their bad pass defense (1.8 yppp worse than average). Nevada has faced two teams with a very bad pass defense (Sac State and Mid Tenn St) and they averaged a modest 6.1 yppp in those games. That’s not going to be good enough with their rushing attack projected to average only 4.1 yprp.

San Jose State’s offense has averaged 455 yards per game at 6.8 yards per play with Eget in the game (against teams that would allow 6.0 yppl to an average attack) and they should move the ball at least as well as they usually do against a Nevada defense that’s been 0.4 yppl worse than average (5.9 yppl allowed to teams that would average 5.5 yppl against an average team).

The line on this game is apparently based on scoring models, as my compensated points model projects San Jose State with a 9.8-point victory. However, the Spartans should be averaging more than their 25.6 points per game given their 455 total yards per game at 6.8 yppl and a 46.3% 3rd-down conversion rate. San Jose State has had some bad luck in the redzone, and they should be more efficient turning yards into points going forward. The projected stats favor San Jose State by 14.5 points in this game.

San Jose State is a Strong Opinion at -10 or less.