We aren't college football experts by any means, but here's our flimsy reasoning...
#1 Wash State has shown ability to surprise good teams this year, when Leach isn't "on tilt". His preps for teams are usually pretty good, and his players seem to focus on the big games, of which this would be one.
#2 "Neutral" field isn't as neutral when you consider time zones. Mich State is technically "away" and Wash State is home due to being on the west coast.
#3 Wash State is better, based on regular season games. As in, fundamentally. GETTING 3 points is attractive to us, given #2 above and fact we think Wash St is the better team
#4 Leach is generally a rather good game-day coach. You can see that in their amazing comeback win in game two of the season.
#5 Tenure matters for college coaches?
Leach's bowl game record is 6-6, so 50%. However, if you count only bowl games outside the first two years in his tenure (which discounts 3 of his bowl games) he's 6-3. That would gives us an edge, no? Why discount the first two years of a coach's tenure at a new school? Simple, recruiting, familiarity and leadership. In year 4 for instance, most of the team members are specifically beholden to Leach who recruited them, and the leadership is mostly established to a coach's mold. His playcalling and plays are also more familiar, no new stuff to learn for upperclassmen.
And now against....
#1 We fear Pac-12 has been kinda weakish, and maybe overrated in past two years. Hard to gauge, but if we're wrong with this call, it's probably due to a large divergence in conferences-- sorta like a middle-performing NBA western conf team is similar to a top nba eastern conf team. We simply don't know enough ncaa football to say if Pac-12 is weak, just a concern.
#2 Luke Falk isn't exactly Mr Pressure, he isn't Kemba Walker.
We worry in ANY big game about Falk overthinking his training. We worry bc Leach has pretty much TOLD everyone to worry.
#3 Mark Dantonio ALSO looks better than his .500 bowl game record when discounting tenure. He'd be 4-2 after ignoring his first two years at a school. Even worse, he's on a 4 game winning streak. Anyway, this sorta nullifies our "pro" about Leach above. We still give a slight edge to Leach tho.
We would only bet 0.5% of AUM on this game. We are mainly basketball folk after all.
