From 1-4 to 6-5, and a near certainty at some post-season action! That's what really happened last week. But let's go ahead and look at the numbers anyway, starting off with the SJSU side of things. The prediction did better there, getting about 2 yards off for passing yards, but it does appear that our run defense performed above our normal. The overall score was pretty dang close, too. On our side of the ball I'm happy to once again say that I was way off. We racked up about 50 yards each for rushing and passing above expected values. The total score was almost doubled from expectations. It truly feels like a different offense when it's working!

USU - 17.79 (35) (134.37 (186) rush, 190.93 (244) pass, 325.30 (430) total)
SJSU - 30.07 (31) (124.41 (84) rush, 259.06 (257) pass, 383.47 (341) total)

Our relative stats did see increases across the board. The scoring defense is essentially the same, but did go up a fraction of a percent. Most of our yardage based stats saw improvement of a few percentage points. The best improvement was in scoring offense, which went up by 6 percentage points.

Outside Alabama, Boise St is probably the toughest team this year. It is not the same squad that lost to UTEP several weeks ago. Their offense is good, especially on the ground, but not necessarily overwhelming. We'll need to find a way to stop the run, but I worry that if we stack the box too much they'll have a breakout passing game. The defense is the real beast, here. There's no real weakness there at all. For us to have any real hope we will have to just be clicking on offense. I see it as possible, but pretty unlikely. I'm going to hope anyway, because that's what I do.

USU
Score O: 23.3 Avg; 24.6 Opp. D; -1.3 ppg worse; -5.34%
Rush O: 162.1 Avg; 152.8 Opp. D; 9.3 ypg better; 6.11%
Pass O: 190.6 Avg; 205.3 Opp. D; -14.7 ypg worse; -7.18%
Total O: 352.6 Avg; 358.0 Opp. D; -5.4 ypg worse; -1.52%
Score D: 29.6 Avg; 25.5 Opp. O; -4.1 ppg worse; -16.08%
Rush D: 197.3 Avg; 169.3 Opp. O; -28.0 ypg worse; -16.57%
Pass D: 196.5 Avg; 188.4 Opp. O; -8.1 ypg worse; -4.28%
Total D: 393.7 Avg; 357.6 Opp. O; -36.1 ypg worse; -10.08%

Boise St
Score O: 29.1 Avg; 24.5 Opp. D; 4.6 ppg better; 18.67%
Rush O: 188.8 Avg; 144.0 Opp. D; 44.8 ypg better; 31.14%
Pass O: 194.2 Avg; 210.3 Opp. D; -16.1 ypg worse; -7.68%
Total O: 383.0 Avg; 353.4 Opp. D; 29.6 ypg better; 8.38%
Score D: 17.3 Avg; 24.9 Opp. O; 7.6 ppg better; 30.51%
Rush D: 122.5 Avg; 167.7 Opp. O; 45.2 ypg better; 26.94%
Pass D: 145.4 Avg; 192.5 Opp. O; 47.1 ypg better; 24.49%
Total D: 267.9 Avg; 360.1 Opp. O; 92.2 ypg better; 25.61%

And the official BBD BS prediction:
USU - 15.82 (124.38 rush, 137.02 pass, 261.40 total)
Boise St - 33.66 (229.49 rush, 191.27 pass, 420.76 total)


Category Rankings

Score O: USU-6th; Boise-1st
Rush O: USU-4th; Boise-2nd
Pass O: USU-5th; Boise-6th
Total O: USU-4th; Boise-2nd

Score D: USU-9th; Boise-2nd
Rush D: USU-11th; Boise-2nd
Pass D: USU-6th; Boise-1st
Total D: USU-10th; Boise-1st

Overall Rankings (score and yards combined differential)

1. Boise St (+83.17%)
2. Air Force (+70.61%)
3. Fresno St (+29.87%)
4. SJSU (+1.01%)
5. SDSU (-1.99%)
6. Wyoming (-23.57%)
7. UNLV (-24.66%)
8. USU (-33.02%)
9. Nevada (-64.75%)
10. Colorado St (-68.04%)
11. New Mexico (-81.24%)
12. Hawai'i (-90.17%)

bu bu bu but UCONN beat Liberty, Liberty clobbered the whyners and the whyners beat Boise su su su so..... we have a chance right?????