Washington State
vs.
Nevada
College Football Pick
9/5/14
Washington State hits the road for a Friday night affair in Nevada against the Wolfpack The Cougars are in off an opening week loss to Rutgers in a Game that saw several lead changes with the Cougars unable to close the deal hang on, losing 41-38 with Rutgers getting the Game winner with 3 minutes to go. Meanwhile the Wolfpack knocked off Southern Utah, gaining over 500 yards in total offense in the process.
Betonline is the very first sportsbook to post lines each week. Their opener on Sunday when this was being written was Washington State -2.5 but has since settls in at pick em.
We expected a bettor performance from Washington State last week. What we learned is that the Cougars will have to improve considerably over the next two weeks before starting PAC-12 play with Oregon coming to town on September 20th. The offense might be ok but it’s the defensive side of the ball that will have to improve to prevent this from becoming a long painful year. They gave up 200 rushing yards to Rutgers, 173 of them to Rutgers back Paul James.
All of the Cougars yards came through the air. They had just 6 yards rushing. Giving up 200 on the ground and only gaining 6 yourself isn’t the way to win football Games and that’s against Rutgers (although we don’t expect Mike Leach to run the ball much). against Oregon, Stanford, USC and the rest of their PAC-12 Schedule that spells mismatch. Teams generally improve the most between weeks 1 and 2, so we shall see.
Nevada is in tremendous shape as they look to improve on a 4-8 season a year ago. They return their entire defense and 7 on the offense. They ended their year last season by going toe to toe in a 5 point loss to BYU and opened this year with the “W” over Southern Utah and their offense hitting on all cylinders.
With the Wolfpack, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. An offense that can put points on the board and a defense that leaves a lot to be desired. With Washington State, or perhaps we should say with a Mike Leach coached team, we also know what we’re going to get and that’s pretty much the same as Nevada. Offense. Offense. Offense. Mike Leach has never been called a defensive genius. But offensive genius applies.
This type of Game isn’t Our cup of tea from a wagering standpoint. We prefer traditional football. Power running Games that open up the passing Game along with stingy defense. The wild west shootouts were never to Our liking. Too many bad things can happen in a Game like this and the back door cover always looms large.
How does this Game likely play out? Washington State should outScoreNevada and win this one going away. They have the better talent and a proven winner in coach Mike Leach. In a shootout type of a Game, you’d kind of have to be a fool not to back Leach and again, what makes that a no brainer is Mile Leach WITH the better talent.
We’ll go ahead and take the team with the more powerful offense. Washington State pk