King of Props: Cooking up production

The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl checks so many boxes for what makes bowl season the best. Is the name ridiculous? Of course. Is the game being played at an atypical time? It’s a 1:30 local kickoff – on a Tuesday afternoon. Are the teams unfamiliar with each other? Eastern Michigan of the MAC takes on San José State of the Mountain West for the first time since the schools met in the 1987 California Bowl. As an added bonus, this game also has an obscure storyline that provides some of the reasoning behind our top prop:

The bet: Over 80½ receiving yards for San José State wide receiver Elijah Cooks (DraftKings)

It’s been an incredibly unique athletic journey for Cooks, who is playing his sixth season of college football after spending the first five at Nevada. While there, he even got to enjoy a March Madness run to the Sweet 16 in 2018 as a depth addition to the Wolf Pack basketball team.

Now concluding his third senior season, Cooks has accumulated 983 yards on 63 catches and topped the century mark five times. He not only leads the Mountain West in receiving touchdowns with 10, but also sits within striking distance of the yardage crown. The current conference leader happens to be his former teammate, Tory Horton, who likewise left Nevada via the transfer portal and posted a total of 1,131 yards for Colorado State.

Cooks played in this bowl in January 2020, catching 14 passes for 197 yards in a loss to another MAC school, Ohio. With the dual incentives of getting 149 more receiving yards and ending his college odyssey as a winner, he should draw numerous throws from Chevan Cordeiro today.