Vegas Play of the Day: Washington State at UNR

By Case Keefer (contact)

Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 | 10:30 a.m.

I actively dislike both football games on the South Point betting board tonight.

That being said, I can’t subject my $10,000 starting bankroll to more baseball torture so here comes a shot on football.

Washington State minus-3.5 at UNR: $220 to win $200

Fairly or not, I can’t get the images of what happened to the two Mountain West teams that took on high-flying Pac-12 offenses in week 1.

Arizona massacred UNLV 58-13 as a 21-point favorite. USC walloped Fresno State to cover an 18.5-point spread.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to believe both those defenses are more talented than the Wolf Pack’s, which gave up seven yards per play last season to rank 120th out of 125 teams in the nation.

Washington State may have gotten upset in its debut, losing 41-38 to Rutgers as a 7.5-point favorite, but to no fault of quarterback Connor Holliday who passed for 532 yards and five touchdowns.

The Cougars are going to score their points. The burden is on their comatose defense to come up with a couple stops.

Counting on the Cougars’ stop unit to do anything but surrender points is always risky, but the Wolf Pack’s first game performance eases some nerves. UNR wasn’t exactly dynamic in a 28-19 win over Southern Utah last week to open the season.

UNR was a 24.5-point favorite in the game, hinting it could possibly be overvalued at sports books to start the season. I’ll go with it at least.

Standings: Bern (45-33-1, $13,827), Keefer (39-41, $10,132), Brewer (32-44-3, $2,700)

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.