Week 11 Musings (Weeknight)

I'll have the bloody recap of last week in the primary musings, but for now, I'll go right into the Thursday night contest....

1. @Utah +2 v TCU: You might be able to get this at 2 1/2, but it appears that most will be looking at 2 in this one. At first glance, I looked at this line and immediately screeched "TRAP!!!!!" since we have the #8 ranked team in the country, undefeated, getting points from a team ranked a few spots lower than them and definitely a rung lower on the hype food chain. However, once you review what these teams have been doing over the past several weeks, you can see why the line is justified. TCU has been just devastating. Everyone knows about the schoolyard beatdown they administered to BYU a couple weeks back, and they have spent the weeks since then doing their best blood and gore acts on the likes of San Diego St and UNLV(last week, especially after QB Omar Clayton had to be carted off late in the first half). Utah, on the flip side, has looked mostly pedestrian, especially last week against New Mexico, a 13-10 snoozefest which left most of the players and fans searching for answers. While the Utes struggled on the scoreboard, they have been ok on the stat sheet, running the ball effectively, and generally exhibiting good balance on offense, while continuing their very strong play on D. Traditionally, the Utes are a handful at home to say the least, and it appears as though the weather will be in their favor Thursday night. TCU will have had to travel from Vegas to Dallas on a Saturday night, then pick up and go from 80 degree weather into a 30-35 degree night only a couple days later. They have an offense that has looked fine this year, but traditionally struggles offensively on the road(won only 13-7 in inclement weather at Colorado St this year). The atmosphere will be wild in Salt Lake, with a new dynamic in play since Utah will be the dogs, and they've taken some heat from the local press for not winning pretty enough. If TCU can walk into that environment and whoop Utah's collective ass, then I will doff my cap to them. I think however, that they are due for a subpar performance, and this might be the week that their penalty problems(last in the country in penalty yards and total penalties) might catch up with them. I think the Utes will get it done.

I really think that on paper, Maryland has a great chance to be the significantly better team at Virginia Tech, but you won't catch me banking on that schitzophrenic team putting it all together in Blacksburg catching less than a FG. VT has no clue who will be playing at QB, and they've been completely helpless in the passing game all year, but Maryland is entirely capable of giving up 28 points on ST and defensive scores, maybe even likely to do so, so I won't be on them. Had they been getting a traditional Thursday night in Blacksburg number, their relative superiority over VT would be too hard to pass up, but I don't trust a team that has already lost to MTSU and been completely cornholed by Virginia on the road this year. No play for me on that one..unless of course we see a big move on the line to 4 1/2 or something.

More to come later...although it's questionable if that's a good thing.