College Football Schedule Week 9: Under the Radar Games to Watch

UNLV at Fresno State

9:30 PM CT on FS1

We’ll stay in the Mountain West for the nightcap. Raise your hand if you knew that UNLV was 6-1 this season. If you raised your hand, put it down because you’re lying. Barry Odom took over the Rebels and has them putting together one of the best seasons in the program’s modern history.

They’re scoring nearly 36 PPG behind a potent rushing attack in Brennan Marion’s “Go-Go” offense. It’s a lot of spread triple option principles out of unique formations. And they’ve got three RBs almost equally sharing the workload: Vincent Davis Jr, Donavyn Lester, and Jai’Den Thomas. It’s the definition of a “RB by committee” approach.

On defense, they’ve been pretty typical for a Barry Odom coached team. It’s very “bend but don’t break”. They’ll give up a lot of yards, but they’re amongst the Mountain West’s bests at getting stops in the red zone and forcing turnovers. It’s led to plenty of exciting matchups this season and thrilling wins.

Fresno State has been having to battle it out without starting QB Mikey Keene, who was injured against Wyoming. Backup Logan Fife led a valiant comeback effort against the Cowboys, and got the Bulldogs to a shootout win over Utah State. It’s unclear whether or not Keene will be good to go for this one, but even with Fife, the Bulldogs can score points. This should be a high scoring duel out west to close out the night.