Saturday, Nov. 23
3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific
ESPN
The 2024 college football season has contained some remarkable plot twists and story-lines. Indiana being 10-0 is the biggest surprise of all. This is the second-biggest surprise. BYU versus Arizona State is the second most important college football game on the November 23 schedule. Both the Cougars and the Sun Devils are playing for a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game, for the right to represent the Big 12 in the College Football Playoff. There isn’t a single person on this planet who predicted this scenario before the season began in late August. It was just too preposterous to imagine in the first place. Both BYU and ASU were viewed as teams which would be buried in the middle to lower reaches of the Big 12 standings. What we have seen in the Big 12 this season is a complete inversion of how the conference was supposed to shake out. The teams picked to finish in the top five have all failed to meet expectations by a considerable margin. Teams picked to finish in the middle or lower thirds of the conference have risen to the top.
BYU has one loss. Arizona State has two. The winner will very likely reach the Big 12 Championship Game and play for the league’s one automatic bid to the playoff. BYU’s Kalani Sitake and ASU’s Kenny Dillingham might decide which man is Big 12 Coach of the Year in this game, though Colorado’s Deion Sanders will also have a say. It could come down to which of the three teams wins the Big 12 title (and that’s if Iowa State doesn’t sneak in and win the league). Tempe, Arizona, is the center of the college football universe in the 3:30 Eastern time slot. It’s the out-of-nowhere plot point no one could have imagined in 2024 college football.
BYU Cougars-Arizona State Sun Devils Odds
Spread: BYU -3.5 (-122), Arizona State -3.5 (+100)
Total: 48.5 (Over -108, Under -112)
Underdog moneyline: BYU +120
Hear T.J. Rives and Jason Powers discuss this game and other underdog possibilities on the “3 Dog Thursday Podcast” by clicking play below,
Will BYU “Hangover” Continue?
The BYU unbeaten season was derailed last week at home against Kansas. The biggest question surrounding this game is if that result serves as a wake-up call for the Cougars, or works the other way and creates a deflated, depressed team which walks into a road environment with no juice against the fired-up Sun Devils, who hammered Kansas State last week and are the ascendant team in the Big 12 right now. If we had to make a guess, we would lean ever so slightly to Arizona State, but these two teams are not proven, established college football powerhouses the way Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, and Georgia are.
Getting a solid, well-defined read on how these teams will react in a big game with huge pressure is virtually impossible. You might think you have the right angle on this game, but you should at least watch the first few drives before making a play. This is a game to live-bet instead of making a pregame betting commitment.