UCONN
vs.
South Florida
Friday Night
College Football
Pick – Analysis
9/19/14
South Florida will host UCONN on Friday Night as these two former Big East rivals resume their rivalry over in the AAC. This is being written on Sunday evening as the openers are bring posted at Betonline and they have just posted South Florida -2.5 -115.
***Note – Update – as of Monday morning South Florida is -3.5
South Florida opened with a narrow win over Western Carolina followed by a TD loss to Maryland and then the eye opening 49-17 train wreck loss to North Carolina State last week. UCONN is also 1-2, losing to BYU and Boise State and narrowly getting by Stony Brook. Very similar results for these two teams thus far.
Speaking of similar, these two have played every year since 2005 with UCONN holding a slim 5-4 edge in the series. Not only has the margin been slim in the win loss column but also on the scoreboard. All but one of these Games was decided by a touchdown or less with several decided by a field goal or less. I think that’s reflective of the talent pool these two teams are recruiting from, which is essentially identical.
We can take the similarities even further by taking a look at their records over the years. Both were very relevant in the 2000’s with several winning seasons and bowl wins. Both last had a winning season in 2010, both 8-5 that year, and both then began their downward spiral which saw South Florida go 2-10 in 2013 and UCONN go 3-9. These two have pretty much been mirror images of each other and that’s capped off by last years 13-10 final Score(South Florida on top).
In a spot like this, you have to take a close look at either of these teams if you can get +3 or better and in this spot, that would be the UCONN Huskies who could easily win this Game straight up. UCONN +3.5