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College Football: Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl Odds & Prediction

By Mike Marteny

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Bowl season gets underway today. Are you ready? I sure am!

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I am back to give you all of the bowl picks against the spread. This year, I am going to do each bowl individually so you have all of the information you need to make your wager or pick, whatever the case may be.

In case you missed any:

Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl at Las Vegas, NV:

(22)Utah(-3.5):

Wins: vs. Idaho State(56-14), vs. Fresno State(59-27), at Michigan(26-10), at UCLA(30-28), at Oregon State(29-23 2OT), vs. USC(24-21), at Stanford(20-17 2OT), at Colorado(38-34)

Losses: vs. Washington State(27-28), at Arizona State(16-19 OT), vs. Oregon(27-51), vs. Arizona(10-42)

Record vs. Bowl Teams: 4-3

Colorado State:

Wins: vs Colorado(31-17), vs. UC-Davis(49-21), at Boston College(24-21), vs. Tulsa(42-17), at Nevada(31-24), vs. Utah State(16-13), vs. Wyoming(45-31), at San Jose State(38-31), vs. Hawaii(49-22), vs. New Mexico(58-20)

Losses: at Boise State(24-37), at Air Force(24-27)

Record vs. Bowl Teams: 3-2

Common Opponents:

Colorado: Utah struggled with the Ralphies in Boulder in the last game of the regular season. Colorado State beat Colorado in the opener at Mile High in their annual intrastate rivalry game. The advantage here goes to Colorado State.

Prediction:

The Garrett Grayson to Rashard Higgins hookup has worked well for the Rams all season long. They will have trouble doing that against a tough Utah defense. The only times that Utah really struggled this year were against fast paced offenses. Colorado State is not slow by any means, but they don’t run at the same pace that Arizona or Oregon does.

Another thing going against the Rams is the fact that coach Jim McElwain is off to the greener pastures (or swamps) of Gainesville. Offensive coordinator Dave Baldwin will lead the Rams in the bowl game, so there really shouldn’t be anything different, but you never know. McElwain is given most of the credit for turning this program around. This is likely an audition for Baldwin, so he has a lot to gear this team up for.

Utah’s defense was going to be overwhelming anyway, but with the shakeup of McElwain leaving, it puts the Rams in a precarious situation. The Utes defensive line is going to cause all sorts of problems for Colorado State. I don’t think they will have much of a problem covering this.

Pick: Utah

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