Navy at Utah

The Bowl season gets underway with the Poinsettia Bowl as Navy faces off vs Utah. Utah has been on a roll after a slow start. Most of what they accomplished this season was on the defensive end. The Utes did not put a single player on the All-MVC first team. Their defense is their calling card, as they finished ranked 3rd in the nation, allowing just 15.6 ppg. The Navy rushing offense again tops the nation but they played a very soft schedule this year. Navy scored 41 ppg when they played teams that have a combined record of 20-64. But they scored just 26.3 ppg vs. teams with a combined record of 23-13 (Ball State, Wake Forest and Air Force). Those three teams are all Bowl teams and none have the defensive credentials that does Utah. Utah has allowed just 30 points total in their last four games, which includes 17 to nationally ranked BYU. The added wrinkle here is that Utah has a defensive advantage most teams don't have when facing Navy in a Bowl game. The Utes have experience against the triple option. Utah plays against Air Force every season, and this year held the 2nd ranked rushing offense to 20 points. And, that was before the defense was coming together. Last year, with most of these same defensive players Utah held Air Force to 14! Utah does not have a big offense, so the total here looks very high, and that is based on Navy's reputation to run. But the Navy opponents have for the most part been amongst the worst in the country stopping the run. Of 120 teams in NCAA football, Navy faced run stop units ranked 118, 116, 112, 100, 96 and 85. That's hardly any resistence. This will be a much tougher venue to put the points on the board needed to make this go over, so we will back the UNDER here.