Missouri vs. Oklahoma Pointspread Pick with Analysis
9/24/11
One year ago, the Missouri Tigers were 10-3 with a defense that GAve up, on average 16 points per Game. One of those 10 wins came against the #3 ranked Oklahoma Sooners as Missouri beat them 36-27, handing the Sooners their 1st loss of the year and one of only 2 losses the entire season. Fast Forward to this week, and the rematch in Oklahoma has the Sooners favored by a whopping 22.5 points. The Game opened -21 but apparently, that wasn’t enough as the Sooner money started flowing quickly through the windows.
Why the big number only one year removed from Missouri winning straight up? Well, to begin with, it’s not the same Missouri team. They lost half of the starters from their defense and while the offense is largely intact, the most important member of last year’s offense now plays in the NFL, Blaine GAbbert. Missouri has also had several key injuries to start the year, though they hope to get some of those players back this week.
Another reason for the big number would be R-E-V-E-N-G-E. Revenge is always downplayed by coaches but remains one of the biggest motivating factors in college football. Here are a few quotes from Sooner coach Bob Stoops:
“We got embarrassed the way we played, the way they beat us,” he said Tuesday during his weekly news conference. “We want to play better.”
“They played better than us,” Stoops said. “They were tougher than us. They outrushed us. They coached better than us. Whatever you want to say. It has nothing to do with revenge.”
Yeah, right Bob. Nothing to do with revenge. As if that wasn’t enough motivation. Missouri receiver Jerrell Jackson thought it was necessary to get the Sooners even more riled up with these comments:
“I don’t know what makes them tough,” he told reporters Monday. “There ain’t nothing tough about them to me. Just watching film, I’m just going to attack them like I attack every other opponent.”
Bottom line, if the Sooners can beat Missouri 63-0 on Saturday, they will. Of course, that’s true even without the added motivational factors.
But the Sooners have to be licking their chops after seeing Missouri give up almost 500 yards of offense to Arizona State and after seeing Missouri struggle to put points on the board against Miami Ohio. The Tigers have had some success offensively and they did put 69 points on the board last week, albeit against Western Illinois, but their only chance here it to be able to run the ball and shorten this Game but we don’t think that’s possible.
If the Tigers can’t run, that puts the Game in the hands of Missouri quarterback James Franklin, and that would be a tall task. While Missouri was able to pile up yards of their own against Arizona State in a 37-30 loss, the differeNCe between Oklahoma and Arizona State is that Oklahoma has a defense that figures to be able to completely stop Missouri, while they also have an offense that figures to be even better than the Sun Devils.
The Sooners have too much fire power here. Oklahoma -22