Two Top 25 teams meet under the bright lights of Friday night in a Wildcat vs. Wildcat showdown. No. 20 Arizona travels to Manhattan to take on No. 14 Kansas State as both teams look to stay unblemished on the season.
Arizona is coming off a game against Northern Arizona in which they struggled much of the time. They escaped with a 22-10 win, but it wasn’t pretty by any means. Kansas State also struggled last weekend, but they faced a tough Tulane team, not an FCS opponent. Still, K-State earned the 34-27 win on the road to move to 2-0 on the season.
Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita only threw for 173 yards and star wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan finished with only two catches for 11 yards. Against a much inferior FCS opponent, one that the Wildcats beat 38-3 last season, I expected a more dominant performance from Brent Brennan’s squad. Fifita has thrown two interceptions already this year, which is something he’s going to have to clean up against Kansas State's defense that returned a fumble for a touchdown against Tulane.
Arizona’s defense was the reason it won the game last weekend, holding the Lumberjacks to just 198 total yards. Going up against Kansas State’s offense is going to be a much tougher test, albeit a doable one.
K-State quarterback Avery Johnson threw for two touchdowns against the Green Wave and Junior running back DJ Giddens found a ton of success on the ground. He finished with 13 carries for 124 yards, marking his sixth straight 100-yard rushing game. While there were some bright spots from the Wildcats offense, it was their defense that came up big in the second half last weekend.
With both offenses having to rely more heavily on their defenses over the last week, I see this game a lot closer than the line suggests. If Fafita and McMillian can bounce back from a poor performance, I could certainly make a case for Arizona to win outright. Whenever a team is an underdog of two or more scores and I think they could win the game outright, I will always grab the points with that team. Give me Arizona +7.5 on Friday night.
Bet NCAAF at BetMGM now! CLICK HERE, sign up for a new BetMGM account, make your first deposit and redeem up to $1,500 in Bonus Bets!
Related
