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Fresh off a MAC championship game appearance, Kent State faces off against Wyoming’s stout run defense in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.
What: Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Who: Kent State (7-6, 6-3 in MAC) vs. Wyoming (6-6, 2-6 in Mountain West)
Where: Albertsons Stadium in Boise, Idaho
When: Tuesday, December 21, (3:30 p.m. EST)
Opening line: Wyoming (-3.5) (O/U 58.5)
Current line: Wyoming (-3) (O/U 58.5)
Most recent bowl result: Kent State defeated Utah State 51-41 in the 2019 Frisco Bowl. Wyoming blew out Georgia State 38-17 in the 2019 Arizona Bowl.
Wyoming at a glance:
What you see is what you get from Wyoming, as HC Craig Bohl wants to run the ball while playing at a glacial 64 play-per-game pace and pitch a stout defense. The Cowboys opened the year with four straight wins in non-conference play against MTSU/NIU/Ball State/UConn before dumping six of the last eight games against Mountain West caliber competition. Sean Chambers got the starting nod at quarterback to open the season, but gave way to Levi Williams in Week 9 who has accounted for nine touchdowns to four interceptions, which is a stark improvement over Chambers’ 6-to-7 ratio and 51% completion rate.
The Cowboys average a mere 23 points per game on offense behind a heavily run-oriented game script where Wyoming leans on former 1,000 yard rusher Xazavian Valladay (78.5 PFF rushing grade) and former high three-star recruit Titus Swen (86.5 PFF rush grade) who combined for 1,721 rushing yards, 5.5 YPC and twelve touchdowns on the year. Swen in particular emerged into a strong co-number one tailback option, posting an excellent 113.0 elusvieness rating in addition to his rock solid 86.6 overall offensive grade from Pro Football Focus. Passing-wise their strategy is to suck-up the safeties in run support so they can take deep shots down the sidelines to exploit 1-on-1 matchups. Their completion rate of 53.5% is 10th-worst in the country while ranking in the 80’s for passing success rate, efficiency and explosiveness. Despite Wyoming’s overall passing woes, they still do a great job of converting third-downs and are excellent in power situations. What they don’t do is hit on enough big plays to keep defenses honest, ranking near the bottom in explosive play rate and Iso/PPP.
Defensively UW is one of the best in the country at stopping explosiveness, ranking near the top in every advanced data point pertaining to big plays while fielding one of the best pass defenses in the country. Wyoming’s run defense is pretty strong across the board as well, though they don’t generate many tackles for loss. The Cowboys’ sack rate of 5.5% ranks 90th in the country, they give up too many third-down conversions (42% = 91st) and the defense has issues keeping teams out of the end zone inside the 20-yard line. All told, Wyoming allows a very respectable 22 points per game and has held down some pretty good offenses such as Utah State, Boise State and Fresno State.
Kent State at a glance:
Four years ago, Kent State hired Sean Lewis to be their new head coach. He took over a floundering program that went 5-19 over the two years prior to his arrival and has now achieved bowl eligibility in each of the last three seasons, culminating with a MAC championship game appearance against NIU last month. KSU is notorious for scheduling Power Five paycheck games in their off-conference slate, so early losses to Texas A&M, Iowa and Maryland skewed their overall record. However the Golden Flashes started scoring points in droves once the MAC schedule began, winning six of the last eight games while scoring at least 31 points over their last seven games leading up to the MAC title game.
Offensively Kent State has quietly emerged into a dominant rushing team, finishing fourth in the country with 243 rush yards per game while averaging 5.3 YPC. Diminutive all-purpose tailback Marquez Cooper ran for 1,080 yards and 11 touchdowns while establishing himself as the Deuce Vaughn of the G5, and Xavier Williams also broke out with 812 yards, 6.5 YPC and three touchdowns as the RB2. QB Dustin Crum was also a major factor in the rushing gameplan while completing 64% of his passes for 2,922 yards, 8.2 yards per attempt and a 16-to-6 ratio to go with his elite 90.7 PFF offensive grade. Dante Cephas was the workhorse at wide receiver after Isaiah McKoy left for the NFL, securing 78-of-114 targets for a 68% catch rate, 1,124 yards and eight touchdowns. Their 481 total yards per game is the seventh best mark in the land. So long as Kent State is ripping off eight yards per play and they’re dictating a rapid pace that ranks 12th fastest in the nation, as is the ethos behind HC Lewis’ “Flash Fast” offense, they’re tough to stop.
Where the Flashes have problems is when they are forced into obvious passing situations with opposing defenses testing their offensive line with extra rushers. KSU is getting killed on blitz downs, giving up sacks in 18% of those situations and converting only 19 percent of their third-and-longs. They also aren’t particularly efficient inside the 20-yard line but protect the ball extremely well, with Kent State winning their season long turnover battle by a staggering +15 margin, second best overall nationally.
While you can nitpick at the Kent State offense’s red zone performance, the defense has been plagued by a series of coverage lapses and breakdowns, allowing 41 points or more in four of their last five games and 35 PPG overall. The Flashes struggled to harass opposing quarterbacks despite blitzing 30 percent of the time, as their pressure rate (19%) and sack rate (3.3%) rank in the bottom five country wide. Ultimately the defensive failings led to fourth-year DC Tom Kaufman being fired in mid-November and replaced with cornerbacks coach C.J. Cox, who promptly game up 47 points to Miami (OH) and 41 to Northern Illinois.
Key to the matchup:
Can Wyoming adopth the Northern Illinois gameplan of beating Kent State in the trenches and controlling the clock while forcing Dustin Crum into passing situations on defense?
Kent State will be trying to play a run-oriented style with a 5’6" running back in Cooper against the best defense KSU has faced since Week 2 against Iowa. Can they win the battle of the interior to setup their lethal RPO’s with Crum?
Best Bet:
It’s been a while, but back in September Wyoming defeated MAC champion Northern Illinois 50-43 and another bowl eligible program from the MAC, Ball State, 45-12. Kent State just lost to NIU 41-23 in the MAC Championship, with the Huskies holding the ball for 40 minutes of game time and grinding down an inferior Kent State defensive line with 66 carries for 266 yards. I see Wyoming following a similar gameplan by attacking KSU on the ground with their talented running back tandem of Valladay and Swen and suppressing Kent State’s offense with their established veteran secondary. Wyoming has been inconsistent this year, but I believe their strengths as a team are well suited to exploit Kent State’s weaknesses. Give me Wyoming (-3).
