{"id":8989,"date":"2010-10-14T06:31:03","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T11:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=8989"},"modified":"2010-10-14T06:31:48","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T11:31:48","slug":"south-florida-bulls-at-west-virginia-mountaineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/south-florida-bulls-at-west-virginia-mountaineers-8989\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday College Football Picks: South Florida Bulls at West Virginia Mountaineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Florida Bulls at West Virginia Mountaineers
\nThursday, 10\/14\/10, 7:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread: West Virginia -12
\nCurrent Betting Line: West Virginia -10
\nOpening Total: 43
\nCurrent Total: 44
\nCurrent Moneyline: West Virginia -410\/USF +340<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Noel Devine and the Mountaineers are currently 10 point home favorites tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

South Florida returns to action on Thursday and travels to Morgantown to take on West Virginia in front of a nationally-televised audience.\u00a0 The Bulls are coming off a 13-9 loss to Syracuse in their Big East opener.\u00a0 \u201cThis is going to be one of the better football games we\u2019re going to play, especially on the road on a Thursday night,\u201d first-year head coach Skip Holtz said.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re throwing the ball better than they ever have.\u00a0 They are adding a dimension to their offense they have not had over the last four or five years.\u201d\u00a0 Since joining the Big East, South Florida is 1-1 in Morgantown, losing the 2008 matchup, 13-7, while winning in 2006 by a 24-19 score.\u00a0 The squad is 6-9 ATS versus conference opponents over the last three years and the total is 8-7 Over\/Under in those contests.\u00a0 The current college football odds see the Mountaineers as 10 point home favorites with a total of 44.<\/p>\n

The Bulls better get acclimated quickly to a mid-week schedule, as the team doesn\u2019t play another Saturday contest until November 13.\u00a0 South Florida will need to spend a good amount of time on the practice field working on pass protection, giving up eight sacks in the last two games, after surrendering only four in the first three games combined.\u00a0 Luckily, quarterback B.J. Daniels has some escapability and has 960 career yards on the ground in a season-and-a-half.\u00a0 The team ranks fourth in the Big East in running the football, averaging 176.2 yards per game, but will be up against a West Virginia stop unit that ranks second in the conference in stopping the run (86.8 ypg).\u00a0 USF is 0-4 ATS in its last four games on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

West Virginia is coming off a lopsided 49-10 home win over UNLV last week that pushed the program back into the rankings.\u00a0 The Mountaineers are fully aware of how dangerous this week\u2019s opponent is, knocking them off in both 2006 and 2007 while they were ranked in the Top 10.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot on our hands,\u201d head coach Bill Stewart said.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019ve whipped us the last couple of games.\u201d\u00a0 The team comes in wit ha 127-103-7 all-time record against current members of the Big East Conference and is 44-20-1 in league home games since it was created in 1991.\u00a0 WVU enjoys a great home-field advantage in Morgantown, posting a 139-49-4 all-time record at Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium.\u00a0 The team is 6-8 ATS at home and the total is 7-7 O\/U in those games.<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers scored the most points in the Stewart-era against the Rebels and much of that is attributed to the passing attack.\u00a0 Deep threat wide receiver Bradley Starts scored three touchdowns in his return to the football field after being injured for most of the year and held without a catch.\u00a0 On the other side of the ball, West Virginia has allowed the fewest first downs in the nation this year (61), but will have to game plan in stopping Daniels.\u00a0 \u201cLast year he was a thorn in our side,\u201d Steward recalled.\u00a0 \u201cThey match up with us, for whatever reason.\u201d\u00a0 He ran for 104 yards and threw for 232 in last year\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

Bettors will find that the Bulls are 0-5 ATS in their last five Thursday games and the total is 4-1 O\/U when they are on the road.\u00a0 West Virginia is a dismal 3-7 ATS as a favorite and 1-6 ATS at home when favored by 10.5 points or more.\u00a0 Maddux Sports has released 2 Thursday college football picks on tonights card.\u00a0 Get these winners by visiting our winning college football picks page of the website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Florida Bulls at West Virginia Mountaineers Thursday, 10\/14\/10, 7:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread: West Virginia -12 Current Betting Line: West Virginia -10 Opening Total: 43 Current Total: 44 Current Moneyline: West Virginia -410\/USF +340 South Florida returns to action on Thursday and travels to Morgantown to take on West Virginia in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[3356,559,448,1299,1155,449],"class_list":["post-8989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-b-j-daniels","tag-big-east","tag-bill-stewart","tag-skip-holtz","tag-south-florida-bulls","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989","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=8989"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8991,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989\/revisions\/8991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}