Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The UTEP Miners from Conference USA will visit the Texas Longhorns from the Big 12 Conference in a college football contest on Saturday afternoon. Kick off time in Texas is set for 3:30PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by FSN. The College Football odds makers have set the opening point spread in this contest and the home team Texas Longhorns opened as a huge 35-point favorite. The early money from the college football betting public has been Longhorn money as Texas is currently a 36-point favorite. The total is currently set at 63 for the sports betting public.
After opening the season with two straight losses the UTEP Miners recovered for a 38-12 victory at New Mexico St. UTEP has faced one high profile program thus far in the season and it was Kansas from the Big 12 conference. In UTEP’s 24-7 loss at Kansas in week two the Jayhawks amassed 576 yards against the weak UTEP defense. Kansas rushed for 255 yards and threw for 321 yards in victory. The Miners offense could only muster 1 of 11 on third down conversions in defeat. UTEP’s junior quarterback Trevor Vittatoe is hitting on 55% of his passes passing for 1 touchdown and 1 interception. The Miners junior running back Donald Buckram put up impressive statistics against Buffalo and New Mexico St but when he ran on Kansas he averaged just 3.4 yards per rush on 9 carries. UTEP is not a very physical team and they stand to get dominated on the offensive and defensive line and will give up sacks to their quarterback and big plays to Texas on offense. The Texas Longhorns are 3-0 on the season with a victory against their lone high profile opponent defeating Texas Tech 34-24 last week. Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy is hitting on 68% of his passes on the season with six touchdowns but already four interceptions. His four picks are already half of his 2008 season total and McCoy has not been as accurate in 2009 as he was in 2008 throwing the football. Tre Newton who has gained 178 yards on the ground for two touchdowns leads Texas on the ground and has 5.6 yards per carry average on the season. I expect the Longhorns to get huge offensive numbers in this game and run all over this UTEP defense. Short passes will go for huge gains and when the Longhorns running backs get past the defensive line it will be daylight for the Longhorns play makers. The Texas defense has been good against the run allowing their opponents to average just 60 yards per game.
For the Latest CFB Odds Please Visit our CFB Odds Page
CFB Trend: Texas is 1-5 ATS in their past 6 home games
The Wagerline consensus has 67.3% of the CFB bettors on Texas -36
The Wagerline consensus has 57.3% of the CFB bettors playing over 63
Tags: college football betting odds, utep miners versus texas longhorns college football betting odds preview
