Week 12 – Baylor at West Virginia
posted November 15
The Game
We’ve got a good-looking Big 12 matchup to look forward to on Saturday afternoon as the Baylor Bears travel to face West Virginia in Morgantown. The Mountaineers sit at 5-4 and are still in the Big 12 hunt should they run the table and get some help from other teams in the conference. Baylor also has a record of 5-4 and they’re playing their best football of the season coming into this one. West Virginia has won two straight. The Bears have won three in a row. Who’s gonna blink, yo?
The Details
Baylor -1.5 West Virginia (59.5)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Baylor -3
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Baylor 30.5 West Virginia 29
Baylor offense vs West Virginia defense
The Bears have really started to roll on offense behind emerging star QB Sawyer Robertson (17-4 TD to INT; 257 rush, 4 TD) and they’ve done it with great balance. They’ve rushed for 257/343/255 L3G using a collection of talented backs including Bryson Washington (26-196, 4 TD last game vs TCU) and thrown for 242/222/274 in those events. Robertson spreads the ball around nicely to his WR/TE/RB weaponry and he’ll be going up against a porous West Virginia secondary that’s ranked #126 (!) in the nation in pass efficiency defense. The Mountaineers have been decent vs the run but we expect Baylor to have enough success on the ground to allow Robertson to do damage with the THROW GAME.
West Virginia offense vs Baylor defense
The Mountaineers have been inconsistent on offense but they do their best work with their rushing attack (#33) and it appears that starting QB Garrett Greene may be available on Saturday. He’s a more dangerous runner than backup Nicco Marchiol but he’s also a bit loose with the football (9-8 TD to INT). The Mountaineers have a fine 1-2 punch at RB in Jahiem White and CJ Donaldson but the Mountaineers have only had two devastating games on the ground all year (Albany, Oklahoma St) and Baylor has been decent vs the run (144 YPG, #62). Baylor’s troubles come in defending the pass and West Virginia has one of the worst passing offenses in the Big 12 so this appears to be a good matchup for the defense.
Trends, Intangibles, and More!
TREND GUY will note that Baylor has never won in Morgantown…….West Virginia hasn’t been very good at home this season….They were blown to pieces by Penn St, Iowa St, and Kansas St….and they slithered past Kansas….Baylor smoked Texas Tech on the road and took Colorado to OT in Boulder.
Summary
We believe that Baylor is the better overall team with a more balanced offense. They’re also coming off a bye week which can’t hurt.
Conclusion
Official play – Baylor ML -120
Sent 9:40am Nov 15
-120 is consensus. You should be able to find anywhere from -114 to -118 if you shop around.
‘Official play’ means that this is one of our favorite plays of the week (perceived value, match-up, coaching, trends, etc.). We’re currently investing 25% more on these plays vs our ‘leans’. We’ll normally have two or three of these choices per week.
‘Lean’ means that we’re placing a standard size wager on the game. We’ll normally have about ten of these plays per week. Many members prefer to pick and choose amongst these games when finalizing their weekly investment cards so we’ll continue to refer to them as ‘leans’.
‘No leanage’ means that we won’t have any action on the game.
Team totals – We’ll list the implied number based on the point spread and total when our analysis is posted. If a team total ends up being an ‘official play’ we’ll post a widely available number at the time of pick release.