The Fresno St Bulldogs from the Mountain West conference will face the SMU Mustangs from Conference USA in the traditional Christmas Eve Hawaii Bowl in an NCAA college football game on Monday night December 24th. Kick off time from Hawaii is scheduled for 8PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by ESPN.
The betting odds opened up in the Hawaii Bowl with the Fresno St Bulldogs favored by -11 ½ points with an over under line of 59 points. Early money has shown on the Bulldogs as Fresno St is now favored by -12 ½ points. The total has moved up a ½ point to a current line of 59 ½ points.
This will be the first meeting between the Bulldogs and Mustangs since way back in the 2004 season where Fresno St posted the 42-0 home win against SMU as a -27 point betting favorite. The total landed under 47 points. CFB Trend: Fresno St Bulldogs are 11-1 ATS this season.
Fresno St travels to the Islands with a good overall record of 9-3 during the 2012 campaign. The team finished hot with five straight wins and point spread covers. Their three losses came on the road to Boise St by 10, Tulsa by one point and a 17 point loss at Oregon. To finish off the regular season the Bulldogs blow out Air Force 48-15 as a -16 ½ point favorite. They have notable wins this season at home to San Diego St putting up 52 points and at Nevada where they also produced 52 points. They are good on both sides of the football. Fresno St is 14th in the nation in total offense with 489 yards a game. They pass extremely well with 322 yards per game ranking 12th in all of college football. Fresno St is 19th in total defense allowing 335 yards a game. They defended the pass well allowing 163 yards a game which is 5th best in all of college football. Fresno St scores 40 points a game and allows 22 points. Junior quarterback Derek Carr finished a productive season with 36 touchdowns and 5 interceptions with a completion percentage of 68%.
The SMU Mustangs finished off the regular season with a record of 6-6 on the year. They were one of the most difficult teams to figure out this season with many inconsistent results. They have some good performances this year with an eight point home win against Tulsa in the season finale to become bowl eligible as well as an 8 point home loss to a very good TCU team. The have a bad 27-26 road defeat to a poor Tulane team and lost 36-14 at Rice. They finished the regular season for the most part on a positive note with four wins in their last six games following the Tulane loss to move from 2-4 to 6-6 and capture a bowl berth. The Mustangs finished 95th in college football with 366 yards per game but still managed to average nearly 30 points per game. On defense they had trouble defending the pass allowing 271 yards per game ranking 107th in college football. That has to be a concern facing the 12th best passing attack in Fresno St.