Oklahoma
vs.
Iowa State
College Football
Pick
9/15/18
When these teams met a year ago, it was one of the biggest surprises of the season. Iowa State took down Baker Mayfield and company 38-31 with a replacement quarterback, which eventually led to a solid season for the Cyclones. Of course, the Sooners still made the CFP and Mayfield was taken No. 1 overall in the NFL draft. After another hot start, the Sooners are huge -18 point road favorites for the rematch at YOUWAGER Sportsbook.
It’s been a tough start to the season for Iowa State, which is why this is its first home Game. The first Game was cancelled and then it had to travel to Iowa in the opener, losing ugly 13-3. This Game is expected to be much different. For starters, Iowa is almost the opposite team of Oklahoma. The Hawkeyes love to win with defense and focus on their ground Game to control the clock. The Sooners simply want to Scoreand that’s what they’ve been doing against weaker defenses in FAU and UCLA. This spread is high, but there are questions for OU’s offense against a legit defense.
Kyler Murray’s been great with 11.71 yards per attempt and seven total touchdowns, while the ground Game has gone for 6.7 yards per carry. Those are great numbers, but they’ll need to start doing that against real defenses. Iowa State won this Game last year because it did just enough on defense by forcing a punt, fumble, missed FG and then clamping down on the final possession. Oklahoma’s offense is again one of the best in the nation and had success against ISU last year, yet it’s a different test for Murray and it doesn’t help that starting running back Rodney Anderson is out for the season after injuring his knee last Game. Trey Sermon and the rest will do fine in replacement, but it’s a blow to the offense.
Covering this Game will require the Cyclones to do what they did last year, scoring 38 points against a mediocre defense. FAU and UCLA didn’t put up much of a challenge mainly due to a new quarterback and new system, respectively. The problem for ISU is that Kyle Kempt, last year’s winning QB in this matchup, injured his MCL in the opener and his status is in doubt for this one. Sophomore Zeb Noland came in against Iowa and did little. He attempted 66 passes last year, but is vastly inexperienced and that could result in more people throwing money at Oklahoma.
The Cyclones should still get some kind of ground Game going, though the reason they won last year was because of Kempt and his 343 yards. David Montgomery and company only rushed for 2.5 yards per carry and they were even worse against Iowa last week with 19 yards on 25 attempts. If Kempt can’t go, this offense could be in real trouble under Noland and may have difficulty reaching 20 points. If that’s the case, the Sooners may not have any trouble covering this Game. And even if Kempt starts with a bum knee, this offense did nothing last week.
The Sooners are 1-4 ATS in their last five road Games, but 5-1 ATS in their last six in Conference play. The Cyclones are 7-1-1 ATS vs. a team with a winning record and 10-2 ATS in their last 12 home Games. The over is 5-1 in the last six meetings between these schools.
Our Pick – Still in doubt as of this writing on Friday is the starting QB for Iowa St. Kyle Kempt, last years hero, went down with in injury in the 2nd half last week. If he can’t go Zeb Noland gets the nod.
It may not matter though. Between the two of them, all they could muster was a field goal against Iowa. Here they get a Sooners squad looking for some revenge for their only regular season loss a year ago, and they have hung 63 and 49 on the board their first two times out this year. Oklahoma -19