{"id":11549,"date":"2010-12-15T23:34:53","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T04:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11549"},"modified":"2010-12-15T23:34:53","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T04:34:53","slug":"ncaa-football-picks-byu-cougars-vs-utep-miners-new-mexico-bowl-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-football-picks-byu-cougars-vs-utep-miners-new-mexico-bowl-preview-11549\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football Picks: BYU Cougars vs UTEP Miners New Mexico Bowl Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

BYU Cougars vs UTEP Miners
\nSaturday, 12\/18\/10, 2:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -12.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -11.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 49
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 50.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The UTEP Miners are bowling for the first time since 2005 and are currently 11.5-point underdogs against the BYU Cougars in the New Mexico Bowl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BYU will be making its sixth-straight postseason appearance in the New Mexico Bowl against the UTEP Miners on Saturday afternoon at University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m impressed how our football team turned the season around after a slow start,\u201d Cougars athletic director Tom Holmoe commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe are very excited.\u201d\u00a0 The Cougars still were unable to produce a winning record during the regular season for the first time since 2004, but enter the game winning five of their last seven games.\u00a0 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall has produced a 3-2 bowl record, including a 44-20 win over No. 16 Oregon State last year in Las Vegas.\u00a0 He will also return to the stadium in which he coached at from 1998-02 at the University of New Mexico as defensive coordinator.\u00a0 BYU is 16-21 ATS over the last three seasons and currently a double-digit favorite on the college football lines page.<\/p>\n

The Cougars will be led onto the field by quarterback Jake Heaps, who will become the first freshman to start under center for the school in a bowl game.\u00a0 He holds school freshman records in passing yards, passing attempts, passing completions, games started and games won.\u00a0 BYU will be meeting UTEP for the first time in 12 years, but has won 20 of the last 22 meetings in the series.\u00a0 The program is also a dominating 26-6 against current Conference-USA teams, but has an 0-2 mark in bowl games against such opponents.<\/p>\n

UTEP is making its first postseason appearance since the 2005 season and will be making its 13th bowl appearance.\u00a0 The Miners have posted a 5-7 record in postseason play and head coach Mike Price knows the team is excited leading up to the contest.\u00a0 \u201cIt means a lot,\u201d he stated.\u00a0 \u201cIt gives you another spring ball, 15-20 more practices for our young guys.\u201d\u00a0 The team is fortunate to earn a spot after losing five of its last six games after starting the season winning five of six.\u00a0 The two teams share one common opponent this season, with UTEP winning 38-20 at New Mexico, while BYU knocked off the Lobos 40-7 in Provo.\u00a0 The squad was 5-6 ATS on the season and produced a 15-20 ATS mark the last three years.<\/p>\n

The Miners are led by senior quarterback Trevor Vittatoe, who holds the school record for passing yards (12,194) and passing touchdowns (94).\u00a0 He struggled mightily down the stretch in averaging just 155.6 yards in the last six games.\u00a0 UTEP has posted an all-time record of 6-16 at today\u2019s venue, with all of those games against southwest rival New Mexico.\u00a0 The program has also gone 5-3 versus Mountain West Conference competition since the WAC split following the 1998 season.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the Miners being 4-1 ATS versus the WAC, while the Cougars are 4-0 ATS in their last four games.<\/p>\n

The college football handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready for the bowl season and can\u2019t wait for you to join them starting on Saturday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BYU Cougars vs UTEP Miners Saturday, 12\/18\/10, 2:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -12.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -11.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 49 Current Total:\u00a0 50.5 BYU will be making its sixth-straight postseason appearance in the New Mexico Bowl against the UTEP Miners on Saturday afternoon at University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":7383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3220,434,377,1243,4150,4149,375],"class_list":["post-11549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-bronco-mendenhall","tag-byu-cougars","tag-mike-price","tag-new-mexico-bowl","tag-trevor-vittatoe","tag-university-stadium","tag-utep-miners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11550,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549\/revisions\/11550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}