Thursday

What a great Thursday for sports, 3 baseball playoff games, and 3 college football games.

Oregon State @ Utah

Oregon State knocking off USC last week was the best thing that could have happened to Utah for a number of reasons.
1. The letdown factor. That should be negated a bit because this is also a prime time game on national TV against a ranked opponent, but you never know, OSU is a young team.
2. Utah definitely won't overlook OSU now. In fact it probably fired them up even more to beat the team that just knocked off the number 1 team in the nation.
3. If Utah blows out OSU it looks very good for them. They blow out the team that knocked off the number 1 team the week before. They really need to blow them out to make it look good for the voters if they want to try and make a BCS bowl.

I like Utah in this spot -11. This may sound weird, but I think OSU had an easier time on defense against USC than they will against Utah, mainly because USC doesn't run the spread offense. I firmly believe that the spread offense is the toughest offense in college football to defend against. Utah runs the spread offense very well. Also Utah defends the run very well giving up only 2 yards per carry. That looks better than it is because of some of the opponents they played, but they have also played Airforce, a run heavy team, and Michigan, a team that can run the ball. After watching the USC film, you can be sure that Utah worked on wrapping up the ball carrier in practice because USC couldn't wrap up Quizz. Finally OSU is different team at home than they are on the road. Corvales is a very difficult place to play, and the Beavers play MUCH better at home than they do on the road.

My main concern, Utah only had 5 days to prepare for this game, that is if you think they weren't preparing for this game the week before because they were playing Weber St. on Saturday.

Pitt @ South Florida

This is a tough breakdown for me. Pitt is an enigma. They remind me of Ohio St. a number of years ago when they would play up or down to their level of competition. They would beat the good teams by 3 points, but they would also only beat the bad teams by 3 points. Pitt does the same stinking thing. In addition, lets talk about what Pitt did on the road last year. Straight up the went 1-4, but against the spread they went 4-1 and they were the dog in every one of those games. All these factors make it tough for me to say that I would take South Florida -13.5.

Pitt only had 5 days to prepare for this game and they were put to the test 5 days ago @ Syracuse. This will be their second road game of the year and it comes 5 days after their first road game. Whoever did the scheduling for Pitt is an idiot. You set your team up for failure when you schedule like this. Now maybe Pitt wins and/or covers tonight, but I don't think that this type of schedule is a recipe for success. On offense Pitts' main star is LeSean McCoy, a stud running back who has struggled to get on track. The reason for this is teams are gearing up to stop him because Pitts' QB play has been poor. South Flordia is built to be able to do that, only giving up 2.1 yards per carry. I believe South Florida will put all of the pressure on the Pitt QB and plain and simple, I don't think Stull will have much success. The wildcard is Pitts' defense. They have experience and talent. If they can force turnovers, Pitt has a shot to keep this close. If they don't force turnovers, I don't think Pitt can keep this close. With no faith in the Pitt QB, I would much rather lay my money on South Florida.

Memphis @ UAB

Both teams are on short weeks as they both played on Saturday. The rushing stats for these two teams are humerous. Memphis rushes for 6.4 yards per carry while UAB rushes for 5.2. Memphis gives up 5.9 yards per carry on defense, while UAB gives up 5.0. So... it looks like both teams should be able to run on one another. Generally that is the first indication that I need to go look at the O/U because there should be a pretty good shot this game could go over. But now with the new clock rules, running teams keep the clock running longer and it burns more time than it used to.

Plain and simple, Memphis was a bowl team last year, and they have more talent. What has really hampered them on offense is their QB. They have great experience and talent in the receiver position, but the QBs haven't been as effiecient as Memphis would like. UAB has also been hurt by inefficent QB play. I lean toward Memphis -3 and the over, but they are not the strongest leans I have ever had.

So there you go, 3 favorites for Thursday. It has me a little concerned but I have done my research and that is what it says, so I am going with it.