Utah +3 -120 4% Play
Utah burned a lot of bettors last week, as they blew a 30-10 lead late against Oregon State, a team that was short, but I think that’s giving us value here. Utah played USC and Washington in their first two games, arguably the best teams in the Pac 12, so the strength of schedule difference here is obvious as Colorado’s opponents have an YPP differential of -0.17 , while Utah’s opponents have +0.33, and Utah comes into this game with better stats.
Colorado has a one dimensional offense, but I guess you could say the same about Utah. The difference is both teams like to run the ball, and Colorado while Colorado looks like the slightly better running team, because they have on paper played better defenses, Utah has the considerably better run defense. Utah’s 31st ranked ypc defense compared to Colorado’s 101st run defense. Both teams establish the run first, and that’s the key to the game, but I like how Utah’s freshman Ty Jordan has come on in the last two games, and that can only help Jake Bentley at QB who has weapons in the receiving corps but hasn’t looked good.
Colorado’s defense is the bigger overall strength as they rank 36th in ypp defense, and 4th in success rate defense, but closer look reveals the fact that they have played an average opponent YPP offense ranking 76th, when you compare that to Utah who ranks 37th in YPP defense, and have gone up agaisnt an average YPP offense ranking 51.6.
More pressure on Colorado as they could head to the PAC 12 Championship with a win, and a USC loss, but I see Utah motivated to play spoiler here, and an unusual situation where the game was moved from Friday to Saturday you have to give the more experienced, better coach in Kyle Whittingham a huge edge.
