Northern Illinois vs. Fresno State:
The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl between the Northern Illinois Huskies and Fresno State Bulldogs takes place on the blue turf at Albertsons Stadium on Monday December 23. This game is littered with opt-outs and transfers, so it is going to be a bit of a challenging handicap, not to mention a major coaching wrinkle.
It is one of the bowl games that illustrates the state of college football in 2024 and we’ll have to see how it all plays out.
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Potato Bowl: Northern Illinois Huskies (-3, 40) vs. Fresno State Bulldogs
Monday Dec. 23, 2:30 p.m. ET
The weather forecast for this bowl game seems to be improving as we get closer to kickoff. Going to Idaho in December can certainly be dicey, but it won’t be cold with temps in the upper 40s and the rain in the area is expected to stop long enough to give this one a window of dryness.
That’s good because these two offenses seem to need all the help that they can get. Starting quarterbacks Mikey Keene and Ethan Hampton went in the portal and neither was listed on the team depth chart going into the game. Keene had 393 of the 403 pass attempts for Fresno State. Hampton had 247 of the 340, with Josh Holst taking over when Hampton was hurt in the middle of the season. Holst had 81 pass attempts with zero TD passes and one interception.
But, maybe that’s an upgrade over what Fresno State will send out with Jayden Mandal or Joshua Wood. Wood had five pass attempts during the regular season and Mandal had three. Mandal was a three-star prospect per 247 Sports in his 2023 class and the 86th-ranked QB. He garnered some praise from then head coach Jeff Tedford in the spring game, as Wood was hurt and unable to play.
Speaking of Tedford, he stepped down just before the season due to medical reasons. Tim Skipper took over as the interim and this will be his final game, as the Bulldogs have already hired former USC assistant head coach for defense and linebackers coach Matt Entz. Entz was the head coach at North Dakota State from 2019-23. With the change, Keene isn’t the only guy in the transfer portal, as the Bulldogs look to be without their second and third-leading receivers and a whole slew of defensive players.
NIU turns to Holst with a bit of a watered-down offense as well. RB Antario Brown was hurt and gave up ground to Gavin Williams this season, but he is not on the depth chart after racking up nearly 1,300 yards last season and 567 this season. Leading receiver Trayvon Rudolph is not on the depth chart either. Three defensive starters are not on the list, including two linemen.
Suffice it to say that this is a tough handicap with so many unknowns, especially at key positions. Fresno State’s strength of schedule is 38 spots above Northern Illinois’s for Jeff Sagarin, even though the Huskies do have that game against Notre Dame, which they won. The Mountain West was an objectively better conference than the MAC.
It seemed like a lot of players were supportive of Skipper getting the full-time job and he didn’t. I don’t know how they’ll react, but given that this is his last game, maybe the team rallies a bit. This is not a strong pick at all, but I’ll lean towards the higher talent level and the team from a better conference getting points.
Pick: Fresno State +3
