NCAA Football Week 5 – USC Trojans at Oregon State Beavers
The top-ranked USC Trojans (2-0 SU & ATS) will put their undefeated record on the line on Saturday when they face off against the Oregon State Beavers (1-2 SU & ATS) in a Pac-10 college football matchup that is set to take place at 9 PM ET at Reser Stadium (artificial turf) in Corvallis, OR.
Thursday, September 25
BetUS NCAAF Betting Odds: USC -25, Total 51
Here are some of the NCAA football betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
* USC has covered six of its last seven games
* USC has won its last seven games SU
* USC has played ten of its last 13 games UNDER the total
* USC has covered four of its last five road games
* USC has won 22 of its last 25 road games SU
* USC has played four of its last six road games UNDER the total
* OSU has won and covered eight of its last 11 games
* OSU has played five of its last seven games OVER the total
* OSU has played four of its last five home games UNDER the total
Also….
* USC has won five of the last six meetings SU
* Four of the last six meetings have gone UNDER the total
How dominant was USC against Ohio State? Well, the Buckeyes got just 84 yards out of 21 throws by starting quarterback Todd Boeckman, and only 2.1 yards a carry out of its rushing game. After a while, it looked like the Trojans got bored.
It is going to be very hard to dislodge USC from its perch atop the college football polls, and Oregon State, despite giving the Trojans a rough go of it on their home field (winning two of the last the meetings in Corvallis) they aren’t likely to be the team to do it. But USC probably benefits a little more by the rest, and unless this is another of those games where Pete Carroll’s team loses focus (as it did against Stanford last year), you should see a crisp performance.
In the early going, Oregon State is not stopping people on the ground the way it did last season, when it was #1, statistically speaking, in the country, allowing less than 71 ypg. This year, it’s a different story, as might have been expected when OSU lost its entire starting front seven off the team that beat Maryland in the Emerald Bowl. Now the Beavers are yielding 169 yards a contest and 4.8 yards a pop. And here comes USC with its scary, deep running game, which complements surprisingly-accurate QB Mark Sanchez (68%) rather well. Even so, the story with Southern Cal is not necessarily offense, but defense. And we don’t see Lyle Moevao (6 TD’s, 4 INT’s) getting very far against this group.
USC is allowing a national-low 3.28 yards per play. Sanchez will have time to throw. But we can see this game being won on the ground, and on defense, where the Men of Troy haven’t permitted a touchdown in the last seven quarters. We don’t see how this game will move close to the 50-mark, so we’re going UNDER the total of 51 points in the BetUS NCAA college football betting odds.
