For the second straight season, Craig Bohl has taken the Wyoming Cowboys to a bowl game. The former North Dakota State head coach was seen as a home run hire for the Cowboys and has turned this program after a couple transition seasons. He is now looking to win his first bowl game ever and his Cowboys are slight favorites to do so. The Central Michigan Chippewas won’t be a pushover though.
Watch the Idaho Potato Bowl live on Friday, December 22, 2017, at 4 p.m. ET at Albertsons Stadium in Boise, Idaho. This game will be broadcast on ESPN.
College Football Opening Odds at BookMaker.eu
Central Michigan +1
Wyoming -1
Over/Under 45
Odds Analysis
It’s been a tale of two seasons for Central Michigan. The Chippewas were 2-5 ATS in their first seven games and the offense had trouble scoring points. The under was 6-1 in that span, but then things changed after a loss to Toledo. The Chips won their last five games in order to finish 8-4 and covered all of those too. Central Michigan was an underdog in three of those five, so the school made bettors some nice coin. The offense was much better during these five wins, scoring at least 31 points in each game, and that led to five straight overs to close out the year.
Wyoming did not live up to preseason expectations, but it was still a successful season for the Cowboys. The Cowboys were not the high-powered offense that many thought they would be with Josh Allen under center and only scored more than 28 points twice all season. That meant the under was a fantastic bet all year with a 10-2 mark. Wyoming finished the year at 7-5 ATS.
Key Injury
Speaking of Allen, it’s still up in the air whether or not he will play in this one. Allen injured his throwing shoulder in Wyoming’s win over Air Force and sat out the last two games of the season as a result. The Cowboys offense was completely anemic without him, mustering just 24 combined points in their last two games and losing to Fresno State and a 2-10 San Jose State team.
Allen was highly touted coming into the year, but has not lived up to the hype despite being billed as a potential first-round prospect in the NFL Draft. He completed just 56.2 percent of his passes and averaged a scant 6.6 yards per attempt in 2017. That’s a full two yards worse than how he did last year when he burst onto the scene.
Right now, the plan seems to be for Allen to play if he is healthy, but if he really has the chance to be a high draft pick, why risk it?
Player to Watch
One of the main reasons that Central Michigan’s offense took off was because Jonathan Ward suddenly started to have a lot of success running the ball. In the Chippewas’ first six games against FBS opponents, Ward ran for just 217 yards. He was more of a receiving threat out of the backfield and it looked like the running game would just continue to flounder.
Over the last five games, Ward couldn’t be stopped. He averaged at least 6.2 yards per carry in each of the five games and tallied 625 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground.
Wyoming had a pretty solid front seven, limiting opponents to just 3.6 yards per carry, so it will be interesting to see how Ward performs in this one.
Free ATS Pick
Central Michigan has a great chance to win this game. The Cowboys were not the same team without Allen under center and I think as the day nears, he is going to announce his intention not to play. Even if he does, the Chips might be the better team anyways. This is one of my favorite plays of bowl season.
College Football Odds: Central Michigan 27, Wyoming 17
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