2018 Las Vegas Bowl PAC-12 v Mountain West
There are Five games on opening day of this year’s Bowl season but this is the only one featuring a team from one of the Power Five Conferences. Played since 1992 this has traditionally been a tie-in with the PAC12 and Mountain West (MWC) although in 2016 AAC Houston got the nod as the PAC didn’t have a 7th team eligible. One could guess that the reason for this is that most Power Five teams don’t want to risk losing to Group of Five Conference members or maybe its the money but whatever it’s a shame there are not more of these types of game as they tend to be close and the big team doesn’t always win.
Anyway pondering aside the game doesn’t have the look of a high scoring blow out for either side and may end up being quite intriguing.
MWC side Fresno are here thanks to a hard-fought win over Boise State in the Conference Championship game, which left them with an impressive 11-2 record. On the strength of this, they are 5 points favourites and on a form line through Both San Diego & UCLA this is justified, however, that was early in the season and ASU has looked strong of late. Fresno does have some other nice wins on the resume including that overtime revenge encounter with Boise and decent wins over Toledo, San Diego, and Hawaii. Their only other loss was to Minnesota who are a middling Power Five Team so no real blemishes. However no real standouts either.
Arizona State started well enough before dropping to 3-4 but then 4 wins in their last 5 games pushed them into Bowl eligibility and for one fleeting moment it looked like they might even sneak into the Conference Final. However a 2 point loss to Oregon put pay to that, and its these close defeats which leave us torn when trying to pick a winner here. Is a good loss better than a mediocre win? They have no losses by more than 7 points and gave Rose Bowl bound Washington a game. They also have a good win over Utah on the resume and if it was Utah v Fresno we think the odds would be different.
Our prediction Arizona State for the win 23-20
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2018 Las Vegas Bowl Enter The Power Five
