Featured Game: BYU Cougars (-7/48.5) vs. East Carolina Pirates
Time: 7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT
Television: ESPN2, ESPN Unlimited
The BYU Cougars are a team I was negative toward entering the season losing QB Jake Retzlaff in the offseason to Tulane and I had them projected for serious regression after their 10-2 season last year. The BYU defense lost a majority of their production from last season and are weaker and less experienced in the secondary in particular. Those issues hasn’t shown up yet for BYU in dominant blowout wins against Portland State and Stanford but the opposition will get more difficult for the Cougars here against an upward trending East Carolina Pirates squad. ECU is 2-1 SU, 3-0 ATS to start the season with wins against Campbell and Coastal Carolina and an impressive in defeat showing against NC State where the Pirates lost 24-17 to the Wolfpack but were in the red zone looking to tie the game before getting stopped on 4th down. East Carolina QB Katin Houser has been great leading this offense with nearly 1,000 passing yards already, a 71.6% completion rate and a 5-1 TD-INT ratio and he’s operating in the type of pass heavy offense (East Carolina is 12th in pass attempts per game) that can finally exploit some of the weakness of the revamped and retooled BYU secondary. BYU’s offense has gotten off to a solid start but this will be the first road game and first road start for their first year starting QB Bear Bachmeier who has middling numbers in the passing game so far with BYU relying more on running the football. The problem here is ECU looks to be much improved on defense this season especially against the run as the Pirates are yielding only 58.7 rushing yards per game at 2 yards per carry and they held their toughest opponent this season NC State to just 105 yards on the ground on 36 carries. If BYU struggles to run the football, it could lead to trouble since their passing game and Bachmeier’s ability to be consistent is still in question. This is BYU’s first road game of the season taking this trip from Utah to Carolina which is a tricky spot. I expect BYU to be in a battle throughout with East Carolina very much in this game from start to finish and having the chance to win this game outright.
Pick: East Carolina +7 -115
