Who: Boise State Broncos (10-2) vs Washington Huskies (7-5)
Where: Vegas, Baby, Vegas
When: Saturday, December 22nd, 3:30 PM EST
TV: ESPN
Line: Boise State by 5
Jay (0-2 overall, 0-2 ATS): This is a no-brainer pick for Boise State. Chris Peterson is one of the best coaches in the game, and you see the impact of great coaching the most in bowl games when coaches get all that extra prep time. You have to go all the way back to the 2007 Hawaii Bowl to see a Peterson-coached team have a really bad performance in a bowl game. And even then it took some guy most people had never heard of named "Chris Johnson" blowing up for 400 all-purpose yards for ECU to eek out a 3-point win. Washington, on the other hand, has been a model of inconsistency under Steve Sarkisian. He's done some good things making the Huskies competitive again, but you just never know what you're going to get with them, and this season has been no exception. They beat Stanford and Oregon State…then laid eggs against teams like Arizona and Washington State and weren't even competitive with elite teams like LSU and Oregon. If they can figure out a way to feed the ball to future NFL superfreak Austin Seferian-Jenkins, maybe they have a chance. But recent history suggests Boise wins handily.
BOISE STATE 24, WASHINGTON 13
Ross (2-0 overall, 2-0 ATS): Washington beat Stanford, one of the season's most impressive wins. They also got destroyed by Arizona and lost in OT to Washington State in their regular season finale. So "consistency" was not exactly their thing this year. Boise State claimed a share of yet another conference title, but they spent most of the season under the radar after losing their season opener against Michigan State. That wasn't unexpected, though: after graduating Kellen Moore and a host of offensive and defensive stars, this was always going to be a rebuilding year for the Smurf Turfers. All teams should be so fortunate to have their "rebuilding years" end with 10 wins (and a shot at 11). This looks like a rough matchup for Washington, with Boise's stingy defense (14.9 ppg, 6th best in the nation) running up against an offense that averaged just 23.8 ppg and ranked around 90th in the nation in rushing and passing yards per game. There's no reason to think that sluggish offense is going to get on track against Boise.
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