Texas Tech

Love the Red Raiders....

By now you can probably tell that I enjoy handicapping college football. Actually there isn’t much more that I like to do than handicap college football. One thing I like much more than handicapping college football is betting against UTEP. Why? Because I always win when I bet against UTEP.
UTEP blows and their defense is worse. Last week, I thought for a nanosecond that I should bet UTEP -18 against Houston Baptist…I mean Houston Baptist..come on. Houston Baptist was 1 – 10 for the last two seasons playing in the FCS. So UTEP plays them last week and gives up 400 yards of offense and almost loses the game (they won 36-34..yay). So out of the 256 Division 1 teams, Sagarin has Houston Baptist rated 235 and UTEP only beat them by two. UTEP is ranked 187…but they really should be closer to 235.

Texas Tech, on the other hand, completely thrashed Montana State, 45 – 10. Montana State is a top 10 FCS team. Sagarin has them ranked 147 which makes them 8 points better than UTEP and 24 points better than Houston Baptist, take your pick. Texas Tech had 691 yards of offense against Montana State and had 35 first downs to 8 from Montana State. That’s a lot of offense against a team that is better than UTEP. Oh yeah, the last time UTEP played in Lubbock, Texas Tech scored 69 points on the Miners.

The only gold that the Miners are going to find is the golden shower that the Red Raider passing game is going to rain down on them. If Houston Baptist can pass for 300 yards on the road against UTEP…it is really scary to see what Texas Tech is going to do to them at home. If Texas Tech passes early in the game, the UTEP defensive line will be D E D from pass rushing them. Once their tongues are hanging out, Alan Bowman is going to be able to eat his lunch in the pocket, and get dessert too.

If UTEP scores 20 points, covering this game will be tricky since Texas Tech will need to get 55 points. I’m confident that Texas Tech will hit that total since UTEP’s defense is not as good as Montana State’s. I’m not really worried about UTEP scoring more than 20 points. Sagarin has Texas Tech ranked 33 in the country. UTEP played 2 games last year against teams ranked higher than 60 (Tennessee and UAB). In both of those games, UTEP was shutout. Texas Tech will have this 34 covered by the 3 quarter with no risk of a back door cover. Laying the big wood on Air Raid and 800 yards of offense in store.