The UMass Minutemen and New Mexico State Aggies clash Saturday in a week 9 college football game from McGuirk Stadium.
The New Mexico State Aggies will look to find some consistency after alternating wins and losses in each of their last four games following a 21-9 win over New Mexico last time out to get to 2-5 on the year. Gavin Frakes has thrown for 517 yards, 4 touchdowns and 6 interceptions on 48.1% passing while Diego Pavia’s thrown for 322 yards and 4 picks on 40.5% passing while also rushing for 102 yards and a pair of scores. Star Thomas has a team-high 326 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns while Jamoni Jones has 217 rushing yards and a pair of scores as well. Justice Powers leads NMSU’s receiving group with 204 receiving yards as well this season. On defense, Chris Ojoh has 61 total tackles with 42 solo tackles and 4 sacks. Lazarus Williams also has 3 sacks for the Aggie defense this season.
The UMass Minutemen will try to bounce back from a 4th straight loss, falling to Buffalo 34-7 to drop to 1-6 on the year. Gino Campiotti’s thrown for 257 yards, a touchdown and 6 interceptions on 44.6% passing while also leading the Minutemen with 380 rushing yards and Ellis Merriweather has 240 rushing yards as well this season. George Johnson III has a team-high 17 receptions for 220 yards to lead UMass’ receiving group this season. On defense, Jalen Mackie has a team-high 50 total tackles including 23 solo tackles and a team-high 2.5 sacks while Jordan Mahoney has 3 interceptions.
New Mexico State is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 road games and 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games following a win while the over is 39-19-1 in their last 59 road games. UMass is 4-9 ATS in their last 13 games overall and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games against a team with a losing record while the under is 5-1 in their last 6 games following a double-digit loss at home.
I get the case to be made across the board here, or maybe it’s the case for fading each side in this game, but I’m looking at the Aggies here. It’s hard to lay points on the road that’s yet to win an away game this season, but the Minutemen’s lone win was against FCS Stony Brook and simply put, I’m not getting enough points to consider the Minutemen here. The Aggies have been competitive against the tougher schedule in my opinion, so I’ll side with the Aggies on the road here.