UTEP Miners Will Provide a Challenge for BYU Cougars In New Mexico Bowl

The college football bowl season gets started with the New Mexico bowl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The New Mexico Bowl will feature the BYU Cougars and the University of Texas-El Paso Miners. The latest college football odds posted by BetMania for this game has the Cougars listed as 12-point favorites over the Miners.

College football is a game of inches and the war is fought in the trenches. The Miners have an offensive line that can win that war.

On the offensive line the Miners started the year with six fifth-year seniors starting and another senior as one of the top backups.

Then injuries inundated the line all season long and they started eight different combination's on the line throughout the season. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the Miners worked with different combination's and provided experience to every player on the depth chart.

Now with just about a month to prepare the Miners will be rested and ready to go on the front line with the exception of one player. Will Ozolinsky broke his leg during the season and will not be available for this game.

In college bowl games sometimes the key to predicting the winner is to figure out what team is excited about the selection.  UTEP is excited to play in this bowl game and returns to bowl action for the first time since 2005. It’s close enough to home to allow the fan base to travel to the game and just playing in a bowl is good enough for the Miners.

The Cougars do not feel the same way.

The Cougars had higher hopes for a better season and a 6-6 record, capped off by a loss to their rival Utah, and does not get any better with a trip to New Mexico. The fans always travel well to support the Cougars, but they have very little reason to be excited about this game and have nagging injuries that could hamper them.

BYU freshman quarterback Jake Heaps suffered a sore non-throwing shoulder and bruised ribs. Heaps will play in this game, but will be nowhere near 100 percent.

The Miners are 4-1 against the spread (ATS) in their last five games against the Mountain West Conference. The Cougars are 2-5 ATS in their last seven non-conference games, 1-4 ATS in their last five games following a loss and 1-4 ATS in their last five games after scoring less than 20 points in their previous game.

Quarterback Trevor Vittatoe had his struggles but still has decent numbers on the season throwing for 2,511 yards and 19 TD passes. The offensive line will provide protection, but the Miners should flourish on special teams.

Marlon McClure averages 14 yards per punt return, 29.8 yards on kickoffs and kicker Dakota Warren can nail deep field goals to keep this game close.

On paper this game may not look exciting, but teams will rise to the occasion during bowl season.

UTEP +12

Matt Regaw is a B/R Featured Columnist and the founder of BookieBlitz.com, your one-stop shop for sports articles, previews and predictions. Feel free to contact Matt at [e-mail].

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