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Colorado vs. Colorado State
Pointspread - Colorado -13 O/U 46
9/4/10
College football is special in many ways that the NFL is not. College sports in general I guess. One of the special things about college football is the rivalries between certain schools. With these special rivalries, it really doesn't matter which team is having the better year, which team has the better talent, etc. With certain programs, you can always bank on a good game. For some schools, these rivalries are just as important at the season itself. Colorado and Colorado State have such a rivalry. When these two hook up, you can usually forget about the high expectations of one team or the low expectations of the other.
What makes the Colorado vs. Colorado State rivalry even more special, is that it takes place in the beginning of the year. A time when every team has high hopes. Hopes of a conference title. Hopes of an undefeated season. Hopes of beating their rivals.
Much bigger things were expected from Dan Hawkins at Colorado. He hasn't delivered. This season, he's loaded. He has 9 starters back on offense and 7 on the defense. This is a critical year for Hawkins and the Colorado program. It's his 5th year at the helm and this team is now 100% his. All the players on the roster are players he recruited. He has won 2, 6, 5 and 3 games the last 4 seasons. We thought they were on the verge of a break out season last year after their 2008 season saw them play everyone tough. But it wasn't to be. Even last year, a 3 win season, they played several high profile programs close, including Nebraska. But they were still a ways away from teams like Texas, who crushed them 38-14.
The question here is, can they beat Colorado State by more than 12 points? 13 at some sportsbooks. History would tell us that's not likely. Rarely will you find a game between two 3-9 teams the year before, with one team favored by this much. But there's clearly a talent gap between these two schools. Colorado gets the better players. But as we mentioned above, sometimes you can throw that out the window when rivals hook up. Let's take a look at the scores of games between Colorado and Colorado State over the last decade.
Colorado's score will be on the left.
24-28
41-14
14-19
42-35
27-24
31-28
10-14
31-28
38-17
17-23
Colorado is just 6-4 straight up over Colorado State the last decade. 4-6 against the spread. Of the 6 games they won, two were by more than 12 points. The other four were decided by 7, 3, 3 and 3. Last year, as a 12 point favorite, they lost straight up 23-17.
For many of those games, legendary coach Sonny Lubick was at the helm for Colorado State. Steve Fairchild is in year number three, which is a negative here. Also a negative is the revenge factor. Colorado has managed to gain revenge the following year each time they lost this decade to Colorado State.
But we can't pass up 13 points, or more by game time, in this rivalry game. Many in college football circles have said this years recruiting class at Colorado State is the best in 10 years. They have 10 starters back on defense and will have the confidence of knowing they beat these guys a year ago. We don't like to back underdogs that likely won't win outright, but this is a game where a back door cover can be expected. Colorado State +13.
No real opinion on the total in this game, but if history is any indication, the over 46 would be the play.