NCAAF: SOONERS FAVORED IN RED RIVER RIVALRY
The Red River Rivalry between the #5 Texas Longhorns and #1 Oklahoma Sooners might be the best in college football.
The Sooners have been installed as seven-point favorites on this Saturday’s Big 12 matchup in Dallas and this is just one of the Week 7 early lines you can find at Sportsbook.com.
These two teams both play in the Big 12 South and the winner will likely find themselves in the conference title game. It’s also a matchup between two high scoring teams averaging more than 47 points per game and each has a great quarterback, Sam Bradford for Oklahoma and Colt McCoy for Texas.
If you are expecting just offense though, think again. The Sooners are giving up just less than 14 PPG and the Longhorns are at 11.4. It just doesn’t get much closer than that statistically at this point in the season.
Note that this has been a streaky series from a betting perspective. Texas has covered the last three meetings (winning two) while Oklahoma won and covered the five previous. These teams have been a bettors’ dream so far this season at a combined 9-0 ATS.
The other top-ranked matchup this week is #4 LSU at #11 Florida. The higher ranked Tigers are four-point underdogs in The Swamp in what is their toughest game of the year so far. Florida already dropped a home game to Mississippi, and this is a must win with road games at Georgia and Vanderbilt coming up later.
In the Pac-10, #9 USC will try to make Arizona State their next home victim after demolishing Oregon 44-10 last week. ASU has lost three straight games and is only 1-8 ATS in their last nine games. That being said, the 25-point spread in this game is enormous and quite surprising frankly.
A Big Ten game of note is #6 Penn State Nittany Lions (-5) at the Wisconsin Badgers. The Nittany Lions are undefeated and have been the best team in the conference. Wisconsin is coming off two losses to Michigan and Ohio State, both games they could have easily won. Still, it’s never easy playing a night game in ‘Madtown’ so this is sure to be a good one.
An intriguing non-conference tilt features the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (+7) at North Carolina Tar Heels. Both teams are 4-1 with the Tar Heels cracking the Top 25 at #22 this week. Notre Dame looked bad in their only road games so far at Michigan State, but they might make the Top 25 themselves with a win here.
Thursday night has #21 Wake Forest defending their home turf over ACC rival Clemson. Clemson has already suffered two losses on the year and they are a disappointing 0-3 ATS, but a win at Wake Forest as 2 ½-point dogs could help turn their season around.
