{"id":17803,"date":"2011-09-16T20:30:52","date_gmt":"2011-09-17T01:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17803"},"modified":"2011-09-16T20:32:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-17T01:32:08","slug":"utah-utes-at-byu-cougars-2011-college-football-week-3-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/utah-utes-at-byu-cougars-2011-college-football-week-3-picks-17803\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Utes at BYU Cougars 2011 College Football Week 3 Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utah Utes at BYU Cougars
\nSaturday, 9\/17\/11, 9:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -6.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -4
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 47.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 45
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The BYU Cougars offense has been mediocre at best in the early going this year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Utah comes off a disappointing 23-14 loss to the USC Trojans as 7.5-point road underdogs in its first-ever Pac-12 Conference game.\u00a0 The Utes will now need to refocus and get ready for their biggest rival.\u00a0 Saturday\u2019s game marks the first time in 113 years that Utah and BYU won\u2019t play as conference foes.\u00a0 This will also be just the second September game played between the two institutions.\u00a0 Utah has managed to win six of the last nine series meetings.\u00a0 Playing as an underdog has been a money-making situation for this team, posting a 43-24 ATS mark when getting points.<\/p>\n

The Utes rallied with 17 fourth-quarter points to pick up a 17-16 win in last year\u2019s rendition of the rivarly.\u00a0 Utah leads the all-time series, 54-34-4, but is 17-17-1 in games played in Provo.\u00a0 One of the keys to success in college football is turnover margin, as the Utes rank 10th nationally.\u00a0 Offensively, the team must learn how to finish out games, outscoring its opponents in the first three quarters, only to be held without scoring a single point in the fourth.<\/p>\n

BYU has been involved in two one-point contests, winning a 14-13 road game against Ole Miss, followed by a 17-16 defeat against the Texas Longhorns in Austin.\u00a0 The Cougars passing game has been pedestrian at best, averaging just 9.07 yards a completion and converting 11-of-27 chances on third down.\u00a0 Head coach Bronco Mendenhall is 3-3 against Utah and has registered a 7-4 mark against all other Pac-12 schools during his time on campus.\u00a0 BYU is 8-9 ATS as a favorite and the \u2018over\u2019 is 11-6 in those contests.<\/p>\n

The Cougars are currently riding a four-game home win streak and have not lost to an in-state school in LaVell Edwards Stadium since overtime against Utah in 2005.\u00a0 Starting the season 1-1 is nothing new for Mendenhall, who went on to post 11-2 seasons in 2006 and 2007 after splitting the first two games.\u00a0 BYU is also 4-2 in home openers under his direction, while going 25-14 since 1972 in the first game inside the venue.\u00a0 Quarterback Jake Heaps must step up, leading the offense to just two touchdowns.\u00a0 His head coach thinks that he\u2019s feeling the pressure of carrying the load due to a mediocre rushing attack in the early going.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Cougars due to their 6-1 ATS mark in their last seven games, while the Utes are 1-4 ATS on the road.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah Utes at BYU Cougars Saturday, 9\/17\/11, 9:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 BYU -6.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 BYU -4 Opening Total:\u00a0 47.5 Current Total:\u00a0 45 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Utah comes off a disappointing 23-14 loss to the USC Trojans as 7.5-point road underdogs in its first-ever Pac-12 Conference game.\u00a0 The Utes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":16562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3220,434,5453,405],"class_list":["post-17803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-bronco-mendenhall","tag-byu-cougars","tag-lavell-edwards-stadium","tag-utah-utes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17804,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17803\/revisions\/17804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}