California - Utah

Poinsettia Bowl December 23, 8:00pm San Diego, CA

California (8-4) ______________ Pac10 ___________ 176.17 ____ __________YPG = 389 (106%) → +3% PPG = 26.5 (104%) dYPG = 389.9 (112%) dPPG = 26.1 (105%) ____ Wk Opponent oPts Score 1 Maryland -282.65 W, 52-13 2 Eastern Washington -507.13 W, 59-7 3 Minnesota 7.50 W, 35-21 4 Oregon 385.85 L, 3-42 5 USC 227.93 L, 3-30 7 UCLA 37.15 W, 45-26 8 Washington St -302.11 W, 49-17 9 Arizona St -109.63 W, 23-21 10 Oregon St 189.28 L, 14-31 11 Arizona 236.36 W, 24-16 12 Stanford 199.79 W, 34-28 14 Washington 19.13 L, 10-42

Utah (9-3) ___________ MtnWest ________ 174.96 ____ YPG = 389.6 (103%) +14% ← PPG = 29.3 (118%)___________ -25% ← dYPG = 314.2 (87%)___________ -28% ← dPPG = 19.7 (77%)___________ ____ Wk Opponent oPts Score 1 Utah St -163.79 W, 35-17 2 San Jose St -289.14 W, 24-14 3 Oregon 385.85 L, 24-31 4 Louisville -108.86 W, 30-14 6 Colorado St -255.31 W, 24-17 7 UNLV -83.31 W, 35-15 8 Air Force 44.52 W, 23-16 9 Wyoming -36.24 W, 22-10 10 New Mexico -391.30 W, 45-14 11 TCU 419.26 L, 28-55 12 San Diego St -155.82 W, 38-7 13 Brigham Young 253.27 L, 23-26

Offensively, the Bears & Utes are pretty evenly matched, both straight up and percentage-wise. The Utes definitely have the edge on defense though - the Bears don't even hold their opponents below their averages. Cal has the slight edge in SoS, and also in big games won - wins over Arizona & Stanford were solid, while Utah's best win was over barely-blue Air Force (all of their other wins were over teams in the red). That's gonna be the clincher for me.

The Line: Utah +3

The Call: California by 9

The Result: Utah 37-27

It appears that the MtnWest is trying to make up for their lack of pizzaz in the regular season...