Nite Owl Sports
Sport: College Football
Game: Cincinnati U @ Marshall Thundering Herd - Friday October 3, 2008 8:00 pm
Pick: 3 units ATS: Marshall Thundering Herd +3.5 (-110)
We'll go with under the radar dog Marshall in this game, as they already have had a major upset win TY (34-27 win at SoMiss, as 7 point dogs), and are 4-1 ATS as home dogs (with average score a one point win in those 5 homers) L3Y under current HC Mark Snyder. And their frosh QB McCann has shown a surprising amount of poise for a guy playing in his first season of Div I CFB. For example, in that win at So Miss, he completed 16-25 passes for 228 YP with two TDPs and no INTs, and in narrow 17-16 home win over memphis the week before, his numbers were not quite as impressive, but he made no mistakes and passed well enough to not only gain nearly 200 YP but also open things up for emerging star RB Darius Marshall (great name for a star RB at Marshall), who gained 140 of the Herd's 180 YR (for 5.4 YPC) that game. And in that So Miss game, RB Marshall gained 112 of the herd's 200 YR, which "loosened" things up nicely for QB McCann, no doubt contributing to the young QB's huge game.
But things aren't so rosy on Cincy's side of the field, as despite Bearcats' 3-1 record (with only loss at top rated Oklahoma), they have already lost their top two QBs in just 4 games, with the latest casualty being Tony Pike, who broke his non-throwing arm in 3Q of LW's narrow win at Akron, while Cincy's defense held on for the win with the offense contributing just 3 4Q points and #3 QB Zach Collaro (a RS frosh) completing just 1 of 4 for two yards -- that won't move the chains, or even make them blink. So crafty Cincy HC Brian Kelly (who went 10-3 LY in his first year at Cincy and 9-3 ATS in lined games) faces a dilemma in this game -- does he start the inexperienced Callaro, or does he turn the offense over to RS ND transfer Demetrius Jones? Remember him from two years ago at ND? He seemed to have potential, but never did much at ND, thus his demotion by Irish HC Charlie Weis and his frustration and ultimate transfer to Cincy. With individual team totals line at 26 for cincy and their QB situation unsettled, leaving the offense a big ??, plus fact that Marshall has shown they can contain an offense (Memphis, who they held to 17 points) at least as good as Cincy's (with a #3 QB), we also like the under 26 for total # of points to be scored tonite by Cincy.
With Marshall chafing to avenge LY's lopsided road loss to a much better (than TY's) Cincy team, and having a bye next week, we will be sure to get maximum effort from them. But with Cincy having easily beaten this team LY (albeit at home) and starting Big East conf play next week against Rutgers, we're not so sure that Bearcats will give an equally intense effort. And we all have seen the way home crowds at these mid-major schools like Marshall go nuts on the rare occasions when their team is on ESPN nat. tv, so we also expect a very vocal, supportive crowd urging the Herd to victory.
While we're not predicting an outright Herd victory, we expect Marshall to keep things tight enough to at least cover if not win, so we will opt for this 3.5 point "cushion," and would pass at anything less than +3 points for Herd. And with line now at 3 at some books and still 3.5 at others, we suggest grabbing +3.5 points ASAP while you still can get it. As usual, consider teasing Marshall up to +10> points with one or two of our other CFB picks for saturday.
And as stated above, we also like Cincy under 26 points (for two units) on individual team totals line.
