Oklahoma
vs.
Bayor
Big 12
Free College
Football Pick
11/14/15
The Big 12 title picture took a bit of a turn with TCU falling to Oklahoma State last Saturday. This weekend, Oklahoma will hope to do the same at undefeated Baylor. The Bears opened as a -3.5 point home favorite at mybookie.ag.
The problem right now for the Big 12 is that they need an undefeated team to win the title. If not, it’s likely the Conference will miss out on the College Football Playoff yet again. Oklahoma already has a loss to lowly Texas, so even if they win out, it may not matter. After this Game, Sooners still have to host TCU and travel to OK State, which is one of the hardest Schedules left in the country.
It doesn’t get easier for Baylor, who travel to OK State and TCU in back-to-back weeks after this. OK State surprisingly has the best chance to go undefeated with all of these home Games against top teams, but it will take a lot to win them.
Both of these teams are on winning streaks, OU at Four straight, Baylor is undefeated, but how much do those mean? The Sooners have beat up on Four straight Big 12 teams, but none of those schools have winning records. This is still the team that lost to Texas and should have lost to Tennessee. The same can be said about the Bears, and playing with a new quarterback for the first time last week looks to be a problem for this team.
Jarrett Stidham got his first start of the season last Thursday at Kansas State, and played well throwing for 419 yards and 3 TDs, but Baylor only scored 10 points in the second half. After jumping out to an early big lead, the Bears failed to put the hurt on and only ended up winning by seven. This was against a struggling Kansas State team that was giving up points in bunches to good teams.
Oklahoma hasn’t played an offense like this all season, so there’s no telling how its defense will perform. The Sooners did well against high-flying Texas Tech and actually shutout Kansas State, but Baylor is another level, even with Stidham. Their No. 1 task will be to shut down receiver Corey Coleman, who has 1,178 yards and 20 touchdowns on the season. Also, it wouldn’t be surprising if Baylor tried to run the ball a little more with Shock Linwood (1,046 yards, 9 TDs) to keep the OU offense off the field.
The Sooners’ offense has been on a tear since losing to Texas. They have scored at least 52 points in Four straight, although as said above, against lesser competition. Baylor’s defense isn’t great and like Oklahoma, hasn’t seen an offense like this all season.
The Sooners have figured things out in recent weeks, finding a run Game that was dormant in the early season. Samaje Perine is back to being a relevant RB after notching 201 yards and Four TDs against Texas Tech. Joe Mixon also provides a speedy burst coming out of the backfield. Quarterback Baker Mayfield is what makes this offense tick, though. He’s having an awesome season with 28 TDs and 4 INTs, while completing 70.2% of his passes.
Oklahoma should be able to keep up on the scoreboard, as Stidham remains the question mark for Baylor.
The Bears have covered in the last Four meetings between these schools, while winning three of those, including last year’s dominant 48-14 showing as an underdog. The road team is 12-3 ATS in the last 15 meetings, as well. The Sooners have covered in Four straight overall, but against weaker Big 12 teams.
Our Pick – One of the things we strive to do here at bettorsworld is EDUCATE bettors. It’s not all about the picks. At times, teaching bettors how and when to bet is more important than the actual pick and this is one such spot.
Betonline posts the first football numbers each week on Sunday afternoons. They opened Baylor -7 this week. Now, had you been armed with Our prediction model, you would have seen that Our model likes Oklahoma to win straight up. You could have grabbed Oklahoma +7. If you missed it, you could have grabbed +6.5 or +6. Heck, we saw value all the way down to +3 on the Sooners.
Once this Game crossed over the +3 down to +2.5 it became unbettable for us. Sure, Oklahoma may very will win straight up as Our model suggests, but more times than not, you’ll end up on the short end of the stick taking the worst number on a Game that moves so much. You simply can’t give away all that value.
That’s one reason middlers LOVE Our model. Some are sitting pretty with Oklahoma +7 and Baylor -2.5 right now. There’s no better middle opportunity in football than one that picks up the 3,4,6 and 7.
Our pick? Well, we’d take Oklahoma at +3 or better here. They get a shot a revange for the last two years in which they were blown off the field and the numbers suggest this years Sooner team is as good or better than Baylor. Oklahoma +3 or more