The Saturday bowl slate on December 18 begins with this late-morning kickoff in Florida. Western Kentucky has a high-flying offense and Appalachian State was good enough to beat a strong Coastal Carolina team this season and play in the Sun Belt Conference Championship Game. This is a very intriguing matchup with a lot of potential to become an entertaining game and give fans a good start to a loaded Saturday of postseason college football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers vs. Appalachian State Mountaineers Location:<\/strong> FAU Stadium, Boca Raton, FL<\/p>\n\n\n\n CFB Odds:<\/strong> Appalachian State -2.5<\/p>\n\n\n\n Western Kentucky Hilltoppers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hilltoppers were a very fun team to watch in 2021. They went 8-5. Their five losses all featured at least 64 combined points. Western Kentucky scored at least 31 points in each of those five losses. WKU scored at least 31 points in every game. In a seven-game winning streak in the second half of the season, Western Kentucky scored 41 or more points six times. The Hilltoppers scored 48 or more points in three of those seven games. Quarterback Bailey Zappe lit up the scoreboard for Western Kentucky this season. He threw for over 400 yards in seven different games and for at least 500 in two of those seven games. He threw for 397 yards, 393 yards, and 382 yards in three other games, meaning that he came within 28 yards of throwing for at least 400 yards in 10 different games this season. That\u2019s a spectacular record of achievement. Western Kentucky played Texas-San Antonio in the Conference USA Championship Game on December 3. Zappe threw for 577 yards and led WKU to 41 points. Western Kentucky lost, though, because UTSA scored 49 points and won by eight. Western Kentucky is an all-offense, no-defense team. Buckle up for a wild ride when the Hilltoppers play in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appalachian State Mountaineers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mountaineers turned in a very strong season, going 10-3. They lost to Louisiana in the Sun Belt Conference Championship Game, and they fell to the same Ragin\u2019 Cajuns team a second time earlier in the season. Other than that, their only other loss was to the Miami Hurricanes. Very simply, this team did not lose a single game it was expected to win. App State was excellent as a favored team this year, which means that since the Mountaineers are favored to win this game, they have built up a certain degree of trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appalachian State separates itself from Western Kentucky with its defense. From November 6 through December 4, a five-game stretch, App State allowed an average of just 11.4 points per game. It conceded more than 14 points only once in those five games. This team clearly figured something out on the defensive side of the ball in the latter half of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As outlined above, Western Kentucky has a great offense and no defense. Appalachian State has a decent offense but a very good defense. The Mountaineers have more ways to win, more ways to succeed, than the Hilltoppers. That figures to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hilltoppers vs. Mountaineers Prediction:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mountaineers 41, Hilltoppers 31<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Saturday bowl slate on December 18 begins with this late-morning kickoff in Florida. Western Kentucky has a high-flying offense…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20373,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20353\/revisions\/20373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Date:<\/strong> Saturday, December 18th, 11:00 AM ET<\/p>\n\n\n\n