BYU Cougars at Air Force Falcons, Falcon Stadium, Colorado Springs, CO
Saturday, September 11, 2010, 4:00 pm EST, TV: Versus
Opening Line: BYU -2 1/2
Current Line: Air Force -1 1/2
Opening Total: 48 1/2
Current Total: 50
Money line: Air Force -115 / BYU -105
Betting lines from above taken from Bookmaker Sportsbook, the worlds best place for sports betting.
Sharp bettors will notice a 4 point swing in the line for these long time conference rivals. Brigham Young opened as a 2 1/2 point favorite and the current line is now Air Force -1 1/2 on the college football point spreads page. This could be due to BYU looking a little shaky in their win over Washington over last weekend, and the Falcons difficult option attack. either way I expect a great game as these two rivals always bring out the best in each other.
BYU beat Washington last week in Provo 23-17. They platooned two quarterbacks and have said they will do the same this week against Air Force. Both freshman Jake Heaps and junior Riley Nelson threw for 131 yards. Nelson did throw two touchdown passes, and neither threw an interception. The Cougars rushed for 146 yards, but JJ. Luigi was the teams leading rusher with only 69 yards. He did catch a 48 yard touchdown pass from Nelson in the 3rd quarter that proved to be the game winner. Defensively the Cougars gave up almost 400 yards but only gave up 17 points. They did a pretty good job containing Heisman trophy candidate Jake Locker limiting him to 266 yards passing and one touchdown pass. Locker also ran for 29 yards and another rushing TD. But against Air Force it is vital to stop the run. BYU was decent giving up 128 yards against Washington.
Air Force was locked in a surprisingly tight battle with Northwestern State at halftime only winning 24-21 The Falcons broke the game open in the second half outscoring the Demons 41-0 for a final score of 65-21. The Falcons gained 616 total yards including 437 on the ground and 7 rushing touchdowns. Quarterback Tim Jefferson passed for 179 yards and two touchdowns, and rushed for another 59 yards and two more touchdowns. Surprisingly, the Falcons did not have one rusher over 100 yards. Asher Clark rushed for 84 yards and a touchdown. On defense they held the Demons to 311 total yards including 62 on the ground. The Falcons forced one turnover.
The Falcons match up well against the Cougars’ balanced attack. BYU has had the Falcon’s number in recent year. Air Force would love to beat BYU one last time before the Cougars leave the Mountain West to be an independent next year. This is expected to be a rebuilding year for the Cougars, and the Falcons certainly have the talent to take advantage of that fact. Both teams travel next week to highly ranked teams who coincidentally are playing each other this week. The Falcons travel to Norman to take on Oklahoma, and BYU goes to Tallahassee to play Florida St.
The weather will be perfect as it expected to be in the mid 70’s with no rain. Both teams are certainly capable of scoring tons of points, but have solid defenses as well. I look for a close relatively low scoring game. We haven’t released a college play on this game, but we have released 5 picks for Saturday, you can get these winners by visiting the NCAA football picks page of the website.
