East Carolina at Boise State

Boise State in this game will return to the place they have bad memories. They still have a sour feeling based on losing here to Hawaii earlier this season. That loss cost the Broncos a WAC title and a better Bowl. BSU is used to playing up (i.e. Oklahoma last year) in the Cinderalla role, so this Bowl game is not something that will hold their attention. East Carolina sure didn't look like a Bowl team early as they started off bad at 1-3, but really came on at the end to secure a Bowl bid. Things have been very out-of-sorts for Boise State. The schedule of this Bowl game and travel plans have caused a lot of problems, and this team may very well be out of focus. Many of the team's players had to reschedule exams to make the pre-Christmas trip to Hawaii. Some players schedules are too crowded to complete exams, resulting in an athletic department representative proctoring exams in Hawaii. None of this bodes well for the focus on this game. This simply is not the Boise State team we are used to to begin with. Although the overall numbers may say so, the schedule says otherwise. This is a team that went off as a -24.5 favorite in five games and -16.5 in a 6th. They played a non-division 1A team in Weber State as well. They averaged 54.3 ppg in those games while allowing 59 TOTAL points! They outgained these opponents 563 yards to 284. The reasonably competitive games on their schedule tell a completely different story. These five games saw Boise State go from 54.3 ppg to 26.6 ppg. The 9.8 ppg allowed rose to 22.8 ppg. They outgained these teams by just 25 yards per game instead of almost 300. The bottom line is, East Carolina will be a much more competitive game than most expect. And coach Skip Holtz relishes in the dog role, as his teams are 16-6 ATS as a dog. There's a good chance that Boise is both distracted and unmotivated for this one. If that pans out, it should be a very close game.