UTAH @ CAL

Quote Originally Posted by CalBear:

I know most are down on CAL and I'm sure many will be all over UTAH here.  And I can understand.  CAL's last two games were blowout losses on national TV. Meanwhile, Utah went to Pitt and won by DD.  People's main concern with CAL is QB play and how could it not.  Maynard looked pathetic...he has poor accuracy, telegraphs all his throws and to make it worse, he has a slow release.  He single handily lost the USC game for CAL throwing 3 critical pics and a fumble. 

However, the defense, which is what will win this game for them played very good against USC and for the first half of the Oregon game.  Sure USC scored 30 pts, but how did USC not score 50+.  Maynard was hand wrapping gifts, USC had 5 drives that began on the CAL 37 (fumble), CAL 30 (fg), CAL 20 (fg), CAL 37 (td) and CAL 9 (td)!  That's 20 pts off turnovers.  All this and they were one drive away in the 3Q from making this a one position game.  Against Oregon, they held the Ducks to 14 first half pts!  Sure they went off in the 2H but it's the Ducks, you can only contain them for so long.

CAL is going up against a team whose offensively challenged to say the least.  I don't believe Maynard turns it over this game, as he has only had 3 other ints in the other 5 games, but even if he does, they will be able to overcome it in this game because Utah won't be able to take advantage.  The Utes are ranked 99th offensively and are 117th in red zone offense.  This offense is a huge drop off from what the CAL defense has seen in their last 3 games.  However, Utah's decencies offensively have been masked in this game because 1) the team won at Pitt 2) Maynard is fogging most peoples minds to even consider how bad this Utah offense is and 3) not many got to watch how bad the Utah offense is.  If the roles were reversed and Utah was the team to have played on National TV, I'm sure the talk would be about how bad the Utah offense is and possibly an auto fade.

Bottom line:
I don't believe Maynard will turn the ball over.  As I've stated, he threw 3 ints against USC but only 3 in the other 5 games. 

Maynard doesn't have to put up big numbers in this game.  Not much will or should be asked of him because Utah stuggles offensively.  He just needs to take care of the ball.  I hope JT is stressing this to him.

Utah is good defensively but their stats, I believe make them out to be better than they are.  They have fared well against one dimensional offenses.  They played well last week at Pitt, but Pitt is one dimensional (run the ball) as their passing attack is 94th.  Despite Maynards struggles last week, CAL has a balanced attack and is capable of exploding offensively.

Did I mention Utah struggles offensively.  I expect the CAL front to be all over the place and reek havoc against the inexperienced Hays.  I don't believe Utah will hit 17 in this game.

This line opened at 1.5 and was bet up to 3 (which is my line) and has been bet back down to -1 at some places.  I believe this line is just correcting itself and some to do with my write up above.

I've already posted CAL -3 LARGE, but I'm adding more at -1.


By the way, I know there will be clowns screaming Homer, but those that know me know the deal. I also have a LARGE play on ND this week...going to add to my card.


CAL -3 LARGE
CAL -1

Good luck everyone.