How and what to watch for New Mexico vs. Utah State

On Thanksgiving night two 0-4 teams take the field as the Utah State Aggies welcome the New Mexico Lobos to Logan in a battle of teams looking for a victory before the end of the shortened season.

The numbers don’t sugar coat anything we don’t already know, which is that both of these teams are very bad in 2020. Utah State will be heading into this game with an unproven quarterback as former starter Jason Shelley was dismissed from the team. The Aggies have a bottom-5 offense in virtually every major statistical category. The only spot where USU cracks the middle tier of college football is in its ability to get runs of 12 or more yards. Those explosive plays still aren’t commonplace though, as the team ranks 70th in the nation. The defense isn’t much better, but it does limit explosive plays well and is ranked eighth in explosive passes (16+ yards) allowed. But they give up a lot of those same explosive plays on the ground as 14% of every rush goes for big yardage against them.

New Mexico proves a bit more productive. While the offense isn’t much better than USU’s, the Lobos ground game has actually been mediocre this season. They’re averaging over 150 yards per game rushing. Still, neither team scores more than 18 points per contest, and the Aggies have yet to score more than 16 points this season.

But we can’t lie: It’s going to be an ugly one.

Game Time/TV Channel/Streaming

You can watch New Mexico vs. Utah State on Thursday, November 26th at 7:00 p.m. ET on FS1, or you can stream it via the Fox Sports Go app with a cable or streaming service login.

Point Spread, Totals, Odds, Trends

Point spread: New Mexico (-6.5) vs. Utah State
Point Total: 51
Money line: New Mexico (-220) vs. Utah State (+175)

• As you could probably expect, the total has hit the under in nine of NM’s last 14 games
• Even more interesting is that the total has gone under five of the last six times these teams have met
• The Lobos are 5-14 ATS in its last 19, while the Aggies are 0-5 ATS this season

Betting splits

New Mexico: (76% of handle, 61% percent of bets)
Utah State: (24% of handle, 39% percent of bets)

The Best Bet

These teams are both very bad this season for a number of reasons. I don’t quite know why the line is set at 51. I suppose both defenses are also as bad as the offenses, so points could be scored. But the recent history of this matchup doesn’t lie

Pick: Under 51

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