Oklahoma State at Texas Longhorns Betting pick | 2011-10-15

NCAA Football

2011-10-15 - Oklahoma State at Texas Longhorns

A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown

Oklahoma State Cowboys @ Texas Longhorns
United States: NCAA Football Week 7
Saturday 15 October 2011 - Kick Off 3:30pm ET
8:30pm (British Standard Time)

Preview

Just a week after being torched by the Oklahoma Sooners, the Texas Longhorns (4-1) need to get back into the saddle as they face the high scoring, and unbeaten, Oklahoma State Cowboys (5-0) in Austin. The Big 12 looks to be between the Sooners and Cowboys, who meet on December 3rd, but Texas will look to put a spanner in the works on Saturday.

It will be interesting to see how Texas plan on slowing down this Cowboys Offense that leads the nation in points scored at 51.4 points per game, and one that comes in having destroyed Kansas last week. Brandon Weeden and the passing Offense have racked up 431 yards per game through the air and the QB has pushed himself into Heisman contention as he has begun the season with 15 TD passes and 6 Interceptions.

Weeden is helped significantly by Justin Blackmon, a wideout who is destined for big things in the NFL in my opinion. Blackmon already has 534 receiving yards this season and 6 TDs caught.

But it's not just the passing Offense that needs to be accounted for, but a rushing game that contributes 146 yards per game on the ground, the majority of which comes from Joseph Randle who has 8 rushing TDs this season.

The Longhorns will not be looking forward to facing this kind of Offensive power, even if the bare statistics show they can deal with the pass fairly effectively. Landry Jones had his way against the Secondary last week for the Sooners, passing for 367 yards and 3 TDs so it is hard to envision Texas slowing down this team.

While the Offense is rightly getting plenty of plaudits, the Defense is still trying to figure out how to get things done, especially when it comes to the better Offenses they are going to begin to face. The Cowboys have relied on turning the ball over to keep teams from scoring, because they have allowed 438 yards of total Offense on average, being unable to stop the run or the pass with any consistency.

You have to think Texas will get some joy on the ground against the Cowboys, with the Longhorns averaging 172 yards per game rushing, even though they were held to just 36 yards last week in the loss to the Sooners.

Case McCoy and David Ash will continue to share reps at QB and both are completing 61% or better of their passes. Both players will be hoping for more joy against Oklahoma State than they enjoyed against the Sooners last week, but turnovers ended up killing their drives and that could be a problem again this week.

Head to Head

Texas had won 12 games in a row in the series until they met last season with Oklahoma State coming away from Austin having recorded a 17 point win.

That also meant the Cowboys improved to 3-5 against the spread in the last 8 games in the series.

The road team has won the last 4 games against the spread in the series.

The favourite is 4-1 against the spread in the last 5 games in the series.

Texas are 3-2 against the spread this season, Oklahoma State are 4-1.

Other Interesting Trends

Texas are 8-1 against the spread in their last 9 games following a double-digit loss at home.

However, Texas are 5-15-1 against the spread in their last 21 home games and they are 1-4 against the spread in their last 5 games as the home underdog.

The Longhorns are also 5-15-1 against the spread in their last 21 games against a team with a winning record.

Oklahoma State are 22-6-1 against the spread in their last 29 games as the road favourite, and they are 12-3-1 against the spread in their last 16 games as the road favourite of between 3.5 and 10 points.

They are also 6-1 against the spread in their last 7 Conference games.

Prediction

I really like the Oklahoma State Cowboys in this spot for the following reasons:

First, the Cowboys Offense is very powerful and Texas were exposed through the air in their game with the Oklahoma Sooners last week.

Second, the Cowboys can score a lot of points very quickly and could force the Longhorns to become one dimensional by making them play catch up.

Third, I feel the Cowboys Defense will be able to make plays and create turnovers against the young QBs Texas are being forced to play.

Fourth, Oklahoma State came into Austin last season and won their first game there since 1944 so will have all the confidence in the World they can do it again.