Utah State narrowly avoided losing to a winless UConn team last week. They will face a Colorado State team that has won consecutive games since their overtime thriller against Colorado. Yet, it was against lower level competition of Middle Tennessee State and Utah Tech. Take the Aggies to get the home underdog cover.

The Rams appear to be on an upward trajectory behind two straight wins after their near-upset of rival Colorado. Utah State had to rally to avoid a disastrous loss to UConn and also missed many opportunities in its loss to James Madison. Even so, I'm not sure the Aggies aren't the slightly better team and they are in a value spot as a home underdog Saturday.

Much as he did in his second year at Reno with QB Carson Strong, Jay Norvell has found a QB for his second CSU edition in Brayden Fowler-Nicolisi, a gunslinger who has tossed 9 TGDP across the past three games as a Rams offense that didn’t score more than 19 points in any game last season has been tallying nearly 36 per game the past three weeks. Meanwhile, it will be a neat trick for Blake Anderson to get the Utags bowl-eligible again this season with a defense that has been getting routinely strafed (allowing 39 ppg last three) since opening week at horse-and-buggy Iowa.

I tend to agree with Chip Patterson that the wrong team may be favored here. Utah State is second in the MW and 21st in the nation in scoring (37.0 ppg). Colorado State's two wins are over a bad Middle Tennessee side and FCS school Utah Tech. The Aggies have won the past four in the series, are home (Homecoming) and have the much more experienced QB presuming Cooper Legas is back under center for USU.

Utah State QB Cooper Legas was benched after struggling against Iowa and Air Force, leading Blake Anderson to turn the QB1 duties over to freshman McCae Hillstead. As it turns out, that might have been a reflection of how strong Iowa and Air Force are defensively because when Hillstead was knocked out of last week's game against UConn with a concussion it was Legas who led the Aggies back to win. Legas completed 85% of his passes with three passing touchdowns with no interceptions in the comeback effort. Wrong team favored, Legas can lead Utah State to another victory.