A pair of true freshman quarterbacks and a pair of undefeated Top 25 teams are going to enter the Rose Bowl on Saturday night.
Only one of the UCLA Bruins and the BYU Cougars are going to walk out with their perfect marks still intact.
ODDS ANALYSIS
These two teams aren't separated by all that much when looking at the AP rankings, but bettors know better. BYU has been the luckiest 2-0 team in the land, and the argument could be made that it certainly should be 0-2 by now.
Not surprisingly, not long after the Bruins opened up at -15.5, they jumped up to -16.5 before settling back down to -16. The total opened up at 60 and has stayed put.
KEY MISMATCH
The UCLA defense has been great against the pass thus far this season, and the fact that it held Matt Johns of Virginia to just 21-of-35 passing for 238 yards with a TD and a pick tells us that this unit should have its way against young Tanner Mangum in this one.
Mangum has awesome stats, going 24-of-39 for 420 yards with three touchdowns and two INTs. Here's the problem. Those three touchdowns were all on bombs down the field and easily could have ended in negative plays. Take those three away, and what's left is a man with a quarterback rating under 80, which won't get it done at this level in a game like this on the road against a legit Top 15 team.
KEY STAT
34.4 – BYU's third down conversion percentage thus far on the young season. It's not even the fact that the Cougars have been bad once getting to third down that concerns us. It's the fact that 32 drives have gotten to third down.
That's a lot of bad situations to be in for sure, and if UCLA can get the Cougs into that many third downs on Saturday night, it'll be a long one for Mangum.
BETTING ANGLE
The Bruins have been fantastic here at the Rose Bowl against teams with winning records, going 17-6 ATS in their last 23 in that situation. They're 1-0-1 ATS this season in spite of the fact that the offense wasn't sterling in either performance.
ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION
Josh Rosen still has some growing to do for sure for UCLA, but he is clearly the better of the two true freshmen quarterbacks in this game. He'll need to average more than 7.5 yards per pass attempt in this game to be truly effective, and in order to cover this spread, he'll probably have to put 40 points on the board with as well as the BYU offense has played.
However, none of this is beyond him either. Paul Perkins and the entire rushing attack for the Bruins has been awesome, and though the BYU defense is going to be tough, it isn't as tough as the matchup was with Virginia in Week 1.
The Cougars are a nice story to get to 2-0, but without two de facto Hail Maries, they'd be 0-2 and a 25-point dog in this game. As a result, we are going to bet accordingly with a huge overlay here on our side.
The Bruins should have this game covered by halftime against an overmatched team which isn't long for the Top 25.
UCLA 41, BYU 17
BookMaker opened the spread for this Saturday game at -15.5 in favor of the UCLA Bruins. Minute-by-minute spreads, totals and props are available for this game using the live betting platform at BookMaker.
Access live betting lines from your mobile device at BookMaker Sportsbook! You can wager on sporting events as they unfold on your television with BookMaker's live betting platform. Real-time spreads, totals, props and moneyline odds are all available by clicking here, so start betting with BookMaker today! The game between the BYU Cougars and the UCLA Bruins will go down Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 10:30 p.m. ET at Rose Bowl Stadium. The matchup will be televised on FOX Sports 1.
