Rutgers -3.5 @ South Florida

[BobJoeJim]

Only Game of the Day analysis: ytd 2-0

Rutgers:
@ NOrth Carolina - W, 21-16 Allowed 5.3 ypc, an 6.5 ypa passing (66% completion rate) but 3-1 turnover ratio pulled them through. Rice went for 200. Joe Dailey was at QB for NC, though, not Cam Sexton who's horrible.
Illinois - W, 33-0 Straight up domination, especially defensively.
Ohio - W, 24-7 More absolute domination on defense. 0.1 ypc!!! 191 yards for Rice, but watch the turnovers, 3 INTs for Teel
Howard - W, 56-7 Meh, Howard is 0-3, got dominated by Hampton and Florida A&M too. And Rutgers still with two turnovers.

Rutgers has only 78 pass attempts in 4 games, and 5 INTs. The offense is RB Ray Rice, exclusively, with his 106 carries for 604 yards and 9 TDs. 5.7 ypc. This team is highly untested; statistically the defense and running game are spectacular, but worry about an opponent with the ability to slow down the run, and watch out for turnovers, there have been way too many so far. Defensively, they are yet to face an offense that is even remotely capable, and were slightly questionable against North Carolina. The only saving grace in not shutting down North Carolina's offense is that the Tar Heels had quarterback Joe Dailey, who got injured early in their second game contributing to their offensive woes since. Rutgers is definitely a questionable 4-0 though.

South Florida:
McNeese State - W, 41-10 McNeese did put up over 70 in a shutout win over West Virginia Tech, along with blowout losses to USF and Toledo. USF's defense shut them down, but 3 turnovers are worth noting.
Florida International - W, 21-20 3 more turnovers, and no particularly impressive offensive numbers. Shut down the FIU run completely, but allowed 20/33 passing and 7.2 yards per attempt, and trailed 20-7 at halftime.
@ Central Florida - W, 24-17 Keeping in mind that UCF is horrible on offense, this (not Villanova) was the only time they got more than 4 yards per carry. Grothe threw the ball great, but the running game continued to be mediocre.
@ Kansas - L, 13-7 Allowed solid passing and average rushing. Struggled to be consistent offensively, and turned it over three times. Kansas did basically the same thing they did against UL Monroe and Toledo.

Offense, thy name is Matt Groce. The quarterback has either thrown or carried the ball on 180 of USF's 258 plays. He is averaging 8 yards per attempt, with a solid 137.1 rating, and has 4.3 yards per carry.

My take:
This game features pretty much the LEAST impressive battle of a 4-0 team and a 3-1 team I think I've ever seen. Both teams are turnover happy, and untested, with many potential chinks in the armor. I think I have to like Rutgers' to stop Groce from running, but he's shown the ability to throw at times, against a weak secondary... which Rutgers might have? Rutgers has run well against bad run defenses, and USF has shut down the run by horrible run offenses... what does that mean?

I think this game has WAY too many variables to be worth a bet. My leaning might be Rutgers, but I just don't think we know enough about either team from what they've done so far. It's at USF too, I just can't see a way to pull the trigger on a road dog in a game where almost anything looks possible, and a turnover-fest looks likely. The potential for turnovers also adds huge volatility to the range of likely scores, so betting the total is no more appealing to me.

If you truly HAVE to have money on the only game of the day, my lean is Rutgers, but I cannot in good concience recommend it. I'm staying away from this game.