CFB
2 Picks.
8:00PM EST: Washington +1.5 (3 Units), 8:00PM EST: Rutgers Team Total Under 23.5 (4 Units).
We're buying this Huskies defense with Steve Belichick at the Helm. They've allowed just 39 points through 4 games this year. They held Northwestern to 112 yards of total offense and 3 points last week. Washington State scored 24 against Washington but that's a potent Cougars offense. WSU QB John Mateer is one of the most electric players in CFB today who excels both as a runner and a passer. He only completed 50% of his passes against Washington but went for 245 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT. He also added 16 carries for 62 yards and 2 rushing touchdowns. Was practically a 1-man offense as he accounted for 307 of their 381 yards. Washington State scored 70 points week 1, 37 against Texas Tech Week 2, 24 on Washington, and then 54 on San Jose State. If they didn't rout Tech they would have scored more against them too. Again, very potent Cougars offense that struggled against this Washington defense. John Mateer just made great plays when needed.
Rutgers doesn't have anywhere close to that type of threat at QB. Through 3 games Rutgers starting QB Athan Kaliakmanis (AK) has thrown for 646 yards while Rutgers as a team has run for 767. AK is a Senior transfer from Minnesota. In 12 games for the Gophers last season, he completed 156 of 294 pass attempts (53.1%) for 1,838 yards, 14 TDs, and 9 interceptions. He added 74 carries for 94 yards. He beat up on Akron and Howard the first couple weeks and played pretty well at Virginia Tech last week, completing 16/25 passes for 269 yards. 63 of those 269 yards came on a screen pass at the end of the game. He completed a pass to just 3 different wide receivers.
2 of Washington's key returning players from last year are in their secondary but they also brought in some big-time transfers. Hard pressed to find a school that's recruited the DB position better than they have the past few years. Their secondary's been strong, and Rutgers doesn't have a great receiving room. Rutgers wants to run the football but Washington's allowing just 2.9 YPC this season. Rutgers had the ball for just shy of 40 minutes against Virginia Tech last week and only ran for 153 yards on 52 carries (2.9 YPC). Rutgers ranked 103rd averaging 20.3 points per game against FBS opponents last year.
The Washington offense is still putting 11 new pieces together, but they had some success against a good Northwestern defense last week, scoring 24 points with 391 yards of total offense. They struggled to score Touchdowns against WSU but still compiled 452 yards. The early Red Zone struggles are to be expected, and they'll continue to improve in that regard as they did vs Northwestern. This Rutgers defense is strong and will provide some challenges, which should help keep the overall scoring down in this game. Washington has a 5th year starter in QB Will Rogers. He's thrown for over 13K passing yards in his career with over 12,000 of them coming at Mississippi State in the SEC. His career TD/INT ratio is superb, and he has yet to throw an INT this season. Washington as a team has just 2 turnovers all season and 1 of them came from a backup RB at the end of a blowout win over East Michigan. The Rutgers offense will need to sustain long drives to score if Washington continues to protect the football and it's tough to see the Knights doing so consistently enough to go over their total.
