Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The West Virginia Mountaineers will hit the road in Big East Conference action when they face the South Florida Bulls in a college football game on Friday night. Kick off time in South Florida is scheduled for 8PM Eastern Time with national television coverage provided by ESPN. The LVSC college football odds makers have set the opening point spread in this game and the West Virginia Mountaineers have opened as a 3-point favorite. The early money from the college football betting public has come in on the favorite, as the West Virginia Mountaineers are currently a 3-½ point favorite. College football money line gamblers who would like to make a play on the favored West Virginia Mountaineers will find them lined at –165 with the home underdog South Florida Bulls bringing back +145 to win straight up without the need for getting points.
The last 4 meetings between these schools have been rather low scoring with the point total no more than 43 points combined for both teams. West Virginia is 6-1 on the season and utilized its speed and athleticism in defeating UCONN last week 28-24. West Virginia’s schedule will begin to get difficult with a test at South Florida and games at Cincinnati and home to Pittsburgh coming up. Mountaineer running back junior Noel Devine has been outstanding rushing for 912 yards on 137 carries, 10 touchdowns for an impressive 6.7 yards per carry average. Devine has rushed for a touchdown in every game this season. After missing much of the Marshall game with a concussion West Virginia starting quarterback senior Jarrett Brown returned to the lineup last week. Brown has hit on 67% of his passes this season for 8 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. Defensively West Virginia is 5th in the Big East allowing 322 yards per game and just 4.7 yards per play average. South Florida is losers of 2 in row dropping a 34-17 home decision to Cincinnati and 41-14 on the highway last week at Pittsburgh. With starting quarterback Matt Grothe out for the season due to injury, freshman quarterback B.J. Daniels was summoned in as starter. Daniels is more of a running style quarterback who has struggled throwing the football. Daniels is only completing 53% of his passes with 7 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. Once again in the major conferences in college football running style quarterbacks will need to be accurate throwing or else their running ability becomes less effective. South Florida’s defense will be tested in trying to contain Noel Devine of West Virginia. The Bulls allow 3.86 yards per rush against their opponent this season, which ranks 7th in the Big East. South Florida’s defense has been torched the last two week allowing Cincinnati 400 offensive yards and Pittsburgh 486. Both the Bearcats and Panthers were able to run at South Florida as the Bulls allowed a combination of 403 yards rushing in those two games.
For the Latest CFB Odds Please Visit our CFB Odds Page
CFB Trend: The Under is 4-0 in their past 4 meetings
The Wagerline consensus has 68.6% of the CFB bettors on West Virginia –3 1/2
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