Early morning NCAA football

Anyone have an opinion on Texas Tech vs Kansa this Sat?

 

first I should say I have a "personal connection" to this game since I live in Texas Tech country

the spread is Tech -17 from what I see online

Kansas has a way of playing Tech close for some reason and last season ran all over them and just about won it @Tech

it is at Kansas this year, but Kansas looks worse than last year.....I think many around here would believe that Tech looks better than last year, but I am not so sure yet because of the level of competition they have played

SMU is really under performing this year, SFA is D1-AA and TCU is under performing as well.....Texas State is having a very good season so far considering they are in year 2 of D1-A

the TCU game was winnable by TCU until near the end and the 10 point differential was closer than that IMO from watching the game, but TCU was favored by 3 so Tech took care of that

the SFA game was Tech by 35 and they covered that clearly, but again SFA was gassed at the end of that game

the SMU game was Tech by 4 and that was covered.....again IMO the game was closer than I believe the score indicates and SMU played a horrible sloppy game

the Texas State Texas Tech game was Tech by 27 and they won by 26 so they did not cover.....that game was definitely closer than the score with Fran going for it on 4th down a couple of times instead of taking 3 points and Texas State having a ton of brain farts on offense throughout the game and really Tech not even capitalizing on them until near the end and then Texas State making young team mistakes while playing air it out catchup ball

Kansas did not come close to covering VS South Dakota.....they were dogs by 6.5 and got beat by 9 by Rice and that game was winnable by KU, but Rice finally woke up and took it after KU refused to take it

They were favored by 10.5 at home against LaTech and won by 3 so they did not cover

so KU has covered none of their games this year while Tech has covered all but their last VS Texas State

South Dakota is 1-3, Rice is 2-2 and should probably be 3-1 and has played well against some good teams, and LaTech is 1-4

KU scored the least amount of points (13) that LaTech has given up this year

they hardly scored more points than a couple of D1-AA teams against SD and the 14 they scored against Rice was tied with a horrible FAU for the fewest points given up by Rice so far......so the KU offense is pretty terrible

the Tech defense has been pretty stingy so far this year as well with only SMU scoring more than 13 points (SMU had 23)

the Tech offense has put up 41, 61, 20 and 33 with the 20 being against TCU that plays a tough fast defense.....again I think some of those point totals are a little inflated because of how the games went, but that is still a lot of points per game

overall 17 point spreads are IMO pretty large and it gets to a point where sometimes teams are happy with a 10 point win when you are thinking score damn it!

but I do not see the KU running game doing as well as they did last year against anyone and Tech has played some decent defense so far this year and had a lot of take aways

I would say take Tech and the points based on the fact that KU is just not scoring points and Tech is and KU is not scoring points against a couple of bad teams and a Rice team that plays good defense, but does not have a real ball control offense they throw it a lot so KU should have had their chances to score and they didn't

 

I wish I knew more about Kansas and had seen them play a couple of times.
I think the TexasTech defense is a mirage.
I was looking to lay it in on IowaSt next week but now I have to be concerned about a hangover from the Texas game.
There will be opportunities down the road after the Iowa St game against Texas Tech.

 

to start this game I was thinking "typical Tech" beat a bunch of lesser teams and run up the score on them and then lose in conference play

then the real fat charlie KU showed up and if I had bet this game I would have been on the ground picking up pieces of tickets and busting out the tape to tape them back together

Tech is a difficult team to bet, but if anyone even considered betting this game based on anything I said I am glad Tech covered that 17

that is part of the problem with Tech with the propensity to run up the score it makes the spreads unusually large and then when they get in a close game it is hard for them to cover or they make mistakes trying to catch up and lose bigger

 

Heard that the Vegas books passed out over 300k because of that fluke Buckeye touchdown on the final play. That score meant they covered the spread, but of course the books had layed off that money.

Oh and although I'm a huge Buckeye fan, they got outplayed for 3 solid quarters and many calls the second half went their way....a few of them I found questionable.

 

Including the OSU "muffed" punt reception, where the OSU punt receiver actually backed away, and the ball hit the ground before player contact, and Northwestern got called for player interference. Terrible call, and no review from upstairs.

 

Jim, I also questioned the review and giving Hyde that TD. Close, but not enough to reverse the field decision, IMO. I also thought the N'Western QB got that first down which would've been possibly a real game changer.

Bottom line, the Buckeyes lucked out.

 

Ohio State was largely outplayed last night. But in the end OSUs physicality won out. Northwestern had no answer for the O-Line and Carlos Hyde, and on the other side they couldn't get the half yard when they needed it on fourth down. Not sure what you guys were seeing, but Hyde pretty clearly stuck the ball across the plane there. Props to Northwestern though, I expected them to get blown out. OSU not hanging onto the ball was a big equalizer. Crazy cover for the Bucks too.

 

The trouble is ... that he actually DID get that half yard. The near side official, who had a better view, actually started running in to mark the forward progress, but the far side official, who had no view, came running in, and had them mark the ball about 3/4 yard shorter that it should have been.
OSU got more than their share of "favorable" calls. Sour grapes ?? ... You bet !!

 

I understand the sour grapes, we've all been there as sports fans. Personally I don't think there is any way to say whether he got it or he didn't; it was just a scrum of players at that point. But if you need just a foot and can't knock someone backwards to get it then you really have nobody to blame, and I'd say that regardless of who is playing.

Again I was very impressed with Northwestern. That's a good football team and they came out offensively and really moved the ball effectively. OSU took Northwesterns best shot and came out alive so I'm happy. I wouldn't be shocked to see them play again in Indy. If NW plays as well the rest of the year as they did last night, nobody left on their schedule will beat them.

 

Going into the game I had doubts about OSU's defense.
I still have those doubts.
The physicality of OSU eventually wore down whatever defense NW had,
OSU better hope NW runs the table from here on out, they are going to need all the help they can get if they want to play for a championship.