2022 Quick Lane Bowl – New Mexico St vs Bowling Green
posted December 13
The Game
Get your family to the disgustingly filthy slums of Detroit for some holiday season bowl game action! New Mexico St gets full marks for scratching and clawing their way into the postseason as they found a way to win four of their final five regular season games. Bowling Green was in the MAC East hunt right to the bitter end and recall that they won five games in MACtion play.
Ignore the tent cities, blatant drug use, and rivers of human filth and enjoy what should be a hard-fought game. Let’s goooo!
The Details
Bowling Green -3 New Mexico St (48)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Bowling Green -2.5
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Bowling Green 25.5 New Mexico St 22.5
Bowling Green offense vs New Mexico St defense
The Falcons will go as far in this game as QB Matt McDonald will take them. McDonald had a decent campaign (22-8 TD to INT, 61%) and despite averaging just 7.0 YPA he was quite capable of hitting deep shots when you least expected it. Nine different players caught a pass of 30+ yards so we expect a lot of uneventful throws and some weak attempts at running the ball (101 YPG, #11 MAC), potentially ACCENTED by some hits of 30+ yards thru the air. Also note that McDonald loves to lose as much yardage as possible when getting sacked so get ready to enjoy that little quirk on game day! The Aggies rank #75 in the nation in rushing defense and a respectable #28 in pass efficiency defense but it’s important to note the New Mexico St played one of the weakest schedules imaginable (#147 per Sagarin).
New Mexico St offense vs Bowling Green defense
The Aggies rank #115 in the nation in total offense but they’ve definitely KICKED IT UP A NOTCH down the stretch scoring 54,49,65 in 3L4G. Now granted, two of those matches were against the dregs of humanity (Lamar, Valparaiso), but QB Diego Pavia has definitely gotten HOT at the right time. The most important piece of news to follow for those who want some SWEET ACTION on this game is the status of the aforementioned Pavia who is dealing with a hamstring injury. Keep tabs on his status. He’s a legit dual-threat QB and you don’t want your money riding on back-up Gavin Frakes (50%, 4-7 TD to INT). Bowling Green is nothing special on defense (#10 MAC total D) but note that they’ve got an excellent pass rush (37 sacks, #1 MAC) and they boast one of the best pass rushers in the nation in DE Karl Brooks (10 sacks). He’s playing in this one as far as we know at press time.
Trends, Intangibles and More!
Both teams are happy to be here and should be motivated to bag a win…..The Falcons haven’t played in a bowl game since 2015 whilst New Mexico St has only participated in ONE bowl game since 1960…..That was a thrilling OT win over Utah St in the 2017 Arizona Bowl……Aggies’ HC Jerry Kill did a another great coaching job this year but note that he’s 0-5 (!) in bowl games over his fine career.
Summary
We expect this one to be a four-quarter battle and a one-score game. Hard to pick a side at this point without knowing the status of New Mexico St’s starting QB so we’ll take a pass for now. If he’s out, we’ll almost certainly look for some SWEET IN-GAME ACTION of some kind on the Falcons.
Conclusion
No leanage
Note:
‘Official play’ implies we have played the game for our standard wager amount.
‘Lean’ implies we are comfortable suggesting ‘small potatoes’ on the game if you want to get down on some sweet action.
‘No leanage’ implies we won’t be involved in the game from a betting standpoint. In-game wagering possibilities only.