Washington -10.5 4.4% NCAAF POD
I think Matt Fink and this USC team may have just too much confidence after their win against UTAH last week, which I felt was a bit misleading. USC backers will disagree with me, but Utah was unfortunate to lose their star RB early, and there were a bunch of 50-50 balls that UTAH just didn't defend. Honestly, I would be surprised if Fink does not get picked off here several times. Everyone is calling Matt Fink the best 3rd string QB in the country, but he's actually the 4th string. Get your facts right! The 2nd string quit on the team, the third string was Slovis, and Fink was the 4th guy in camp. After one game we want to call this system pluggable? Graham Harrel has done a good job so far as OC, but it's about to get a lot tougher, because Washington's defense has owned this style of offense.
I admitted in my write up last week that Utah has had issues with Washington State, but I had felt like BYU had put together a template of how to defeate it, but UTAH seemed to be very stubborn in that game and continued to play man vs. man defense the entire game almost. They mixed up zone a little bit, but not nearly enough to make an impact. Well Washington, and DC Jimmy Lake who was previously the DB coach has done an excellent job in pass defense over the years and have sent many guys to the NFL. Their last 4 games vs. Washington State, who runs a similar offense they have forced 18 TO'S! That's not a misprint. Since 2015 there have been 4 meetings and the average score was Washington 40 and Washington State 14. Now USC is obvioulsy more talented, but they have a worse coach in Clay Helton, just 3-11 ATS as a dog here, and teams traditionally are auto fade following an upset of a Top 10 team like USC is.
We haven't even spoken about Washington's offense which has been great, and I think we are still getting value on this Washington team from their weird loss to Cal. Jacob Eason has a better arm than most QB's in the NFL, and he's been accurate too completing 73% of his passes. This is easily the best raw talented QB that Chris Petersen has had to work with. USC has a very young secondary that is prone to giving up big plays. I think Washington rolls here and we are back talking about how Clay Helton will be fired at the end of the year.
