SMU at Nevada

The Hawaii Bowl - Aloha Stadium - Honolulu, HI. Who's more motivated for this one? This will be the fifth-consecutive Bowl appearance by the Wolfpack. They get a less-than-exciting opponent in SMU. The Mustangs haven't been to a Bowl since the program received the death penalty back in the mid 80s. That's nearly a quarter decade of waiting. There has to be a lot of excitement for this team, players and coaches to be appearing in a Bowl game and they should be more pumped than Nevada for this game. Nevada has had a top-10 offense for the last three years, but in spite of that, they were shutout in their Bowl two years ago, and haven't managed to win any of the three. The offense that has been devastating opponents in the regular season has yet to translate into a Bowl game. That potent offense has stalled averaging just 19.3 ppg in the last three Bowls. During the last three regular seasons, they averaged over 35 points per game. SMU really started putting things together late in the season as they won four of their last five, with the lone loss coming by just 3 points. They enter here with a 6-1 ATS mark in their last seven as a dog. Before the arrival of June Jones, this team went 58-153-3 with one winning record since the heyday in the 80s. In his first year, Jones went 1-11. Heading into this season, he set a goal of the Hawaii Bowl and he reminded his players nearly every week of that goal. He wanted to be here as a tribute to his friend and special teams coach Frank Gansz who died in April. This is a ton of points for a Bowl game. The Wolfpack has shown that their offense, after a month off, doesn't seem to perform at the same level in a Bowl game. Meanwhile, the Mustangs are excited to be here and have an emotional reason to show up big. I like the Mustangs in this one.