The Texas A&M Aggies welcome the Oklahoma State Cowboys to College Station for one of the Big 12\u2019s best games of the season. Both teams are ranked in the top 10, and the winner takes a big step forward towards earning an automatic berth in a BCS bowl, maybe even the national championship game. Of course, each team has to wrestle with Oklahoma somewhere down the line \u2026<\/p>\n
The home Aggies opened as 3 point favorites, but sharps and squares have moved that up to 4 or even 4 \u00bd. Ordinarily I like to fade the public and ride the coattails of the experts, but in this case, I think they\u2019re both on the same page because A&M is quite simply a solid pick. So for one of this week\u2019s free picks, consider backing Texas A&M in a revenge game from last year.<\/p>\n
The Aggies should\u2019ve won last year in Stillwater; they basically gave OSU the game. Five turnovers negated a big halftime lead and a decided advantage in yards \u2013 535 to 351 \u2013 in favor of A&M. The last turnover, which happened to be the fourth interception thrown by former quarterback Jerrod Johnson, led to a 40 yard field goal for the Cowboys as time expired, sealing the win for OSU, 38-35.<\/p>\n
But as most of you probably know, Aggies coach Mike Sherman made a crucial switch, replacing Johnson with Ryan Tannehill. After the switch A&M won 6 straight games, including wins against Oklahoma and Nebraska, before bowing to LSU in the Cotton Bowl. Sherman saved his job, A&M found a solid qb who didn\u2019t turn the ball over, and just like that the Aggies were a force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n
Ten starters are back on offense, including Tannehill, four offensive linemen, standout receiver Ryan Swope, and stud running back Cyrus Gray. They\u2019ve been clicking so far this year, averaging just under 500 yards per game. Granted, they\u2019ve played Idaho and SMU, but the Mustangs aren\u2019t that bad and against the Vandals, Sherman took his foot off the pedal after leading 27-0 at halftime.<\/p>\n
The defense has been spectacular so far. June Jones\u2019 offense could only must 14 points, while Idaho was allowed to score a meaningless fourth quarter touchdown, meaning A&M is allowing 10 \u00bd points against. Although Von Miller is playing on Sundays for the Broncos, defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter is making big strides with a defense that finished near the bottom of college football in 2009, the year before DeRuyter arrived. Last year they ranked 21st in scoring defense, and through two games this year they have 11 sacks. OSU head coach Mike Gundy recently said, \u201cA lot of people would argue who they\u2019re playing or whatever, but I\u2019m not sure you can take away 11 sacks. Their scheme is good. They have good blitz packages and that\u2019s allowed them to have success on that side of the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to be down on the Cowboys, though \u2013 they\u2019ve taken care of business so far. But there\u2019s one stat that popped out at me: over the past 3 seasons, OSU is just 1-4 against the spread as an underdog, while they\u2019re spectacular as a favorite. That\u2019s a trend that\u2019s hard to argue with. The Cowboys simply don\u2019t play up to par when they\u2019re lined as a \u2018dog.<\/p>\n
Brandon Weeden to Justin Blackmon is the best combination in college football, in my opinion. But I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll score at will against A&M; in fact, I think they\u2019ll have an unusually hard time moving the ball because I don\u2019t think their ground game is good enough for the offense as a whole to rack up points against the Aggies. Additionally, OSU has yet to face such a balanced, physical offense. I expect the Cowboys defense to labor and stay on the field for long stretches. That\u2019s one way to combat the Cowboys\u2019 offensive prowess \u2013 control the game clock.<\/p>\n
It should be a decent game, but I see A&M winning and covering this spread. Hopefully a late 10 point lead doesn\u2019t get ruined by a pointless Blackmon touchdown, but that\u2019s a risk I\u2019m willing to take. Consider laying the points. Best of luck.<\/p>\n
Maddux Sports is ready to crush the bookmakers today.\u00a0 We are locked and loaded for another winning day.\u00a0 Visit the premium and free college football picks page of the site for more info.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Texas A&M Aggies welcome the Oklahoma State Cowboys to College Station for one of the Big 12\u2019s best games of the season. Both teams are ranked in the top 10, and the winner takes a big step forward towards earning an automatic berth in a BCS bowl, maybe even the national championship game. Of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":3920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[9531,1923,1976,1141,1145,2683,5474],"class_list":["post-17948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-college-football","tag-college-football-betting","tag-free-picks","tag-oklahoma-state-cowboys","tag-texas-am-aggies","tag-week-4","tag-week-4-college-football-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17948","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\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17948"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18006,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17948\/revisions\/18006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}