The San Diego State Aztecs got off to a horrible start to their season, but they won each of their last nine games, including capturing the Mountain West title. Their reward is a trip to Honolulu for the Hawaii Bowl and a shot at taking down the AAC rep Cincinnati Bearcats.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
San Diego State Aztecs -1
Cincinnati Bearcats +1
Over/Under 56
ODDS ANALYSIS
Considering how much time there is available to bet on the bowl games, it isn't out of the ordinary to see the favored side flip. That's exactly what we've seen here in the Hawaii Bowl.
San Diego State opened up at -1 but has since moved to +1.5. That's not a huge line movement on the college gridiron, but any time a favorite flips, it's worth considering.
The total has trended upward just a bit from 56 to 56.5.
KEY MISMATCH
The Aztecs are going to have to throw the ball little bit to win the Hawaii Bowl against a Cincinnati offense averaging over 550 yards per game.
Maxwell Smith threw the ball a grand total of 199 times this year, and he's still very much so up in the air for this game after tearing his ACL. Granted, much of what the quarterback's responsibility is for the Aztecs is to turn around and hand the ball to Donnel Pumphrey and Chase Price.
That said, we can't imagine Smith is going to be that effective throwing if he does play, and it he doesn't, it's tough to have confidence in Christian Chapman, someone who has thrown just 38 passes in his entire collegiate career.
KEY STAT
9 – The number of players who have at least 400 yards from scrimmage this year for the Bearcats. You just never know where the ball is going to end up. Hosey Williams, Mike Boone and Tion Green all split the backfield fairly evenly, while Shaq Washington, Chris Moore, Max Morrison, Mekale McKay, Johnny Holton and Alex Chisum all have at least 437 yards receiving.
The SDSU defense hasn't seen anything quite like this yet in 2015.
BETTING ANGLE
Tommy Tuberville's bowl history isn't great, and these last two seasons have been abysmal to say the least. The Bearcats were clocked 33-17 in the Military Bowl by Virginia Tech last season, and that came on the heels of a 39-17 loss in the Belk Bowl the year prior to North Carolina.
Once is an accident, twice is a trend.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
Cincinnati's offense is going to want to be on the field a ton in this game, and it is going to want to get off as many snaps as it can with Hayden Moore running the show. San Diego State's defense could be up to the challenge of at least slowing down this offense just a bit, but we don't see the offense doing its share of the work to be able to win this game.
Smith might be gritty enough to give it a go in the Hawaii Bowl on a torn ACL, but this rarely ends well. The Bearcats should do enough and ultimately have too many weapons to stop, while San Diego State will find itself in neutral with just the ground game to rely upon.
Cincinnati 31, San Diego State 20
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Real-time spreads, totals, props and moneyline odds are all available by clicking here, so start betting with BookMaker today! The game between the San Diego State Aztecs and the Cincinnati Bearcats will go down Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 8:00 p.m. ET at Aloha Stadium. The matchup will be televised on ESPN.
