#228 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Utah State Pick -120 over Georgia State, Saturday at 3:30 PM ET - This Georgia State team had much higher aspirations this seasons as they expected to contend and possibly win the Sun Belt Conference. After winning 6 of their first 7 games, the Panthers fell off a cliff and lost 5 straight to end the season and they are now sitting in a lower tier bowl they didn’t anticipate being in. They were outgained in each of their last 5 games by a total of nearly 900 yards and it looks like this team has packed it in. Now they travel west to Boise and where the windchill is expected to be in the 20’s at game time. Not ideal for a warm weather team. GSU lost a ton of production to the transfer portal as well with their top RB (over 1,300 yards) and top WR (over 800 yards) already out the door. Utah State has the advantage of playing on the blue field in Boise every other season as both are members of the Mountain West Conference. This line is a bit light in our opinion (we have USU as a 3 point chalk) which might be due to the fact that the Aggies top 2 QB’s are injured and won’t play in this game. However, their starter in this game will be senior Levi Williams who is very experienced and set to be a Navy SEAL when this game comes to an end. Williams led USU to a win in their regular season finale vs New Mexico, scoring 5 TD’s (2 passing and 3 rushing) in a game they had to win to become bowl eligible. Prior to coming to Utah State, Williams was the starting QB at Wyoming where he was 2-0 in bowl games including playing at this venue (Idaho Potato Bowl) 2 years ago accounting for 5 TD’s and 327 yards of total offense in that win. He should be more than comfortable in this spot. These 2 teams played a very similar strength of schedule this season (79th and 84th SOS per Sagarin) yet Utah State had much better numbers with a YPG differential of +30 (GSU was -58 YPG) and a YPP differential of +0.7 (GSU was -0.9). After winning their previous 2 bowl games, Utah State was embarrassed in their bowl game last year losing 38-10 vs Memphis and they’ve put a heavy emphasis on winning this one. We like Utah State here.