NCAA Football
2012-12-31 - Iowa State at Tulsa
A Sports Betting Pick by Addicted
American Football : North America : NCAAF : LIBERTY BOWL
Monday, December 31st, 2012, 3:30PM (8:30PM GMT)
PREVIEW
Tulsa will end it's season as it began it, playing Iowa State. In the season opener, Iowa State rolled to a 38-23 win, but are just 1 point favourites here, and with good reason. While Iowa State went 6-6, including a poor 3-6 in Big 12 Conference play, Tulsa went 10-3, and a near perfect 7-1 to become Conference USA champs. I think Tulsa should be the favourites.
Tulsa boast the 2nd best defence in Conference USA giving up just 24 points per game. Mind you, they beat the UCF, who gave up the least points in C-USA, in both games including the conference title game. Also, Tulsa's 354 yards surrendered per game was best in the conference. They got opponents to turn it over 24 times, and made 48 sacks, and an overall 104 tackles for loss.
On offence they choose to run first, and boy do they do it well. They are 11th in the country with 240 yards per game on the ground, and behind it put up 35 points per game, well above what they did in the season opener. They could well put up that number here against Iowa State, in what is a massive revenge game, but also a chance to have an 11 win season for only the 2nd time in school history!
Oh, and they can pass too. Cody Green actually threw for 413 yards when they played SMU! He has 2,499 yards for the season and has thrown 17 TD passes, with just 10 picks. The Iowa State defence may be giving up just 23 points per game, ranking them 33rd in the country, but they are allowing too much yardage, 445 per game, which means Tulsa will have chances to try and convert it into points.
BETTING VERDICT
I think the wrong team is being favoured. There is clearly enough money on Iowa State, based on them being favourites and also winning earlier this season. This one turns out very different. Let's take Tulsa to win outright.
The Pick :
Tulsa 31-28 Iowa State
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take Tulsa to win @ 2.10 (Pinnacle)
