Nevada @ New Mexico St (+9) O/U 50 – Aug 27 10 PM ET
As of the writing of this article I’m going to use the mid-line consensus numbers for the spread and total as listed in the title.
Feel free to shop around though. I have listed some books and lines below for reference:
FanDuel: 8.5 / 49.5
DraftKings: 9 / 50.5
Caesars: 9 / 50
MGM: 9.5 / 50.5
By the end of this article, I will conclude with my first free pick of the football season!
Nevada is coming off an 8-5 season on a senior dominated team (202 of 264 overall starts). They have gone to bowl games the last 4 seasons. While that sounds great, this team started off the 2021 campaign going 7-2. They flailed at the end of the season losing 3 of their last 4 games, including a 52-24 loss to Western Kentucky in the bowl game.
That was all in the Jay Norvell era which has come to an end as he moves on to Colorado State to take over their program. Norvell will be replaced by first year head coach Ken Wilson. Don’t be surprised though if Wilson has picked up a thing or two from Norvell. Wilson has been a coach on the Nevada staff for more than two decades. He finally gets the chance to put his stamp on a basically brand-new team.
Nevada returns 2 offensive starters and 4 defensive starters, which gives them the lowest returning production in the country. While that sounds a bit scary, they are bringing in 12 transfer portal commitments which puts them in the top 10 in that category. That should give them a good boost of experience that this team will need.
Nevada loses their QB and their top 7 pass catchers from 2021’s team. With that being said, they do return their two headed running attack with Toa Taua and Devontae Lee. They should be able to establish the run early against a New Mexico State team that ranked 112th against the run last year giving up an average of 197.5 yards per game and return a majority of that defense.
Nevada Trends:
7-1 ATS in game one of the season
14-2 SU against New Mexico State
7-0 SU in last 7 road games vs New Mexico State
Over in 9 of last 12 Nevada games
New Mexico State brings in veteran head coach Jerry Kill for his first year with the Aggies. Kill’s previous stops included Northern Illinois (2008-2010), Minnesota (2011-2015), and TCU (2021). Out of those 10 seasons, Kill took his team to 5 bowl games. He lost all of them. He had one good season overall at 10-3 with the 2010 Northern Illinois team. The rest of his tenure was mediocre outside of a couple 8-5 seasons with Minnesota.
New Mexico State is willing to take a shot on his “success” though. They’ve had one winning season since 2002. Since then, they are averaging 3 wins per season. Not great when they spent a great deal of that time in the WAC and now as an independent.
New Mexico State will return 3 offensive starters and 9 defensive starters from last year’s 2-10 team. The defense should have experience playing together as a more cohesive unit, but with a new coaching staff you must think there will be a learning curve with changes to their schemes.
New Mexico State will also have a tough beginning to their schedule as their first 5 games are against bowl teams from last year. After that it gets a bit easier with their next 6 games coming against teams with losing records.
It’s still looking like a rough road ahead for this team with what they return on a marginal defense and pieces they need to replace on offense.
New Mexico State Trends:
1-13 ATS game one of the season
4-2 ATS in last 6 games against Nevada
Over in 7 of last 8 games against Nevada
Nevada won the meeting between these two teams last year by a score of 55-28. We must take that with a bit of a grain of salt though as it was in Nevada with a senior laden team. With that being said, Nevada did hold a 52-7 lead through three quarters.
Another trend we have to take with some skepticism is New Mexico State’s 4-2 ATS record in their last 6 games vs Nevada. Most of those games came in seasons prior to 2012. The spread in last year’s game was 28.5. This line is much closer than they have been in the past.
This number opened with Nevada being favored by 14 points and the over under was set at 55. Both numbers have come down to where they sit now around 9 and 50 respectively.
Both teams lose a bunch of talent from last year’s team via graduation and the transfer portal. They are both learning new systems from new head coaches. This puts them on fairly even terms as far as the experience of their teams, coaching, and schemes.
Where I believe the difference comes in is Nevada gets a familiar coach. They hired within the program promoting someone who has been there for a long time during fairly successful seasons. Nevada also brings back their top two rushers against a defense that was pitiful against the run last year. I also like Nevada’s depth and transfer portal commitments here better than what New Mexico State has. I don’t think this game is as close as some people think it will be.
While it seems like a stale number at this point, I do think there’s value here still. Nevada should come out with the win and I think they get it done by at least 14 points. Past first game of the season trends are also strong with these two teams.
The total gives me pause. Since Nevada will be committed to the run game, and from all accounts New Mexico State will be too, the tempo of this one could get a bit slow. There’s usually a reason these totals come down and I’m not going to be one to push the envelope on it here. I find more value backing a side in this one.
This is the first game of the year, so I’m going to keep the unit size small until we’re able to get more data points.
Give me Nevada -9 for 1U.
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