Louisville -29.5 @ Middle Tennessee

[BobJoeJim]

Only Game of the Day (YTD 4-0)

Okay, we all know about Louisville, and their injuries are common knowledge. We're looking at an explosive but injured offense. So far, though, the injuries don't seem to be slowing the team down much, althouth only putting up 24 on Kansas State last week was somewhat disconserting. There were four turnovers in that game, though, and I wouldn't expect Louisville to cough it up that much against Middle Tennessee. Since replacing Brohm, Cantwell has completed 73% of his passes, and is actually rated 10 points higher. At running back, Stripling and Smith aren't exactly struggling, averaging 6.3 and 5.1 yards per carry respectively. Obviously, Louisville should have no problem scoring a lot, but we already knew that, the question is how much? MTSU did shut out North Texas, shut out 1-AA Tennessee Tech and hold FIU to 6. The Blue Raiders are capable of shutting down an anemic offense, and even held Maryland to 24 (semi-impressive if you only look at the respective conferences). All signs point to Maryland being anemic this year as well, though, and Oklahoma scored 59. Well, okay, Adrian Peterson you say. Not so fast my friend, Peterson only ran for 4.7 ypc (128 on 27), but Paul Thompson was over 14 yards per attempt (13/18 for 257 and 3 TDs). Not having watched the game, I would assume MTSU completely sold out against the run and got burned. If this happens to them against a relatively one-dimensional "good" offense, I would expect them to be dead in the water against a balanced "good" offense like Louisville brings. The Cardinals are certainly capable of scoring pretty much as many points as they want here.

What about the other side of the ball? Well speaking of anemic offenses, let's look at Middle Tennessee. They ran for 2.6 ypc against FIU, 3.7 against North Texas, 3.5 against Maryland, and 0.8(!) against Oklahoma. At least they can throw? No. Clint Marks had 79 yards against FIU, was 22/42 for 5.2/attempt and 1 INT against Maryland, 3/9 with a pick against Oklahoma before being replaced (by someone who did worse), and 10/20 for 106 yards in the win over 1-AA Tennessee Tech (the one game they actually could run the ball). He was 13/18 for 154 yards and a TD against North Texas, but to call that good would really be grasping at straws. Louisville's defense meanwhile has been impressive this year, holding Miami to 7 and K-State to 6 in their last two games, after shutting out Temple. They shouldn't allow much to a team that has only had one good rushing game (against a 1-AA team) and only one good (sort of) passing game (against North Texas).

Sure anything can happen to get a team one fluke score, but I still have a LOT of trouble seeing MTSU get more than 10 points in this game. Holding Louisville under 40, meanwhile, looks almost impossible. This may be the class of the Sun Belt, but it's still a Sun Belt team. Even at home, I think they would need significantly more than 30 points to match up afvorably with a top ten opponent. It looks like the best line out there is Louisville -29.5 -102 at Pinnacle. Best of luck, here's hoping I can run my heater to 5-0 on OGotD plays.