South Florida at Pittsburgh (09/29/2011)

Pittsburgh has home field advantage on a Thurs nt. prime-time game and their recent trend of beating USF including last year's 17-10 win on the road easily explains why USF as a top 25 ranked team isn't favored by more.
That being said, this is a new year and USF beat Notre Dame on the road while Pit lost to ND at home...
More importantly, I see a big edge in the turnover department with Pit giving up 6 turnovers and USF giving up 5, but Pit forcing only 4 opponent turnovers to USF's 13. USF's defense appears to be very opportunistic and that in itself could be the difference in this game.
Also, Pit gave up 182 yards on the ground to ND last game and USF is racking up an average of 228 ypg rushing which IMO is a problem for Pit coming into this game.
USF's QB B.Daniels is having a good year so far with 8TD to 1INT while Pit's QB T. Sunseri is unimpressive at 4TD, 4INT.
Finally, I see an improving and consistent  USF program under Skip Holtz while Pit is still adapting to new coach Graham's schemes which are foreign to Pit's players.
In spite of Pit's home turf in the national spotlight on Thurs nt.which should be a good test for USF, I'm looking for S.Florida to break the streak of losses to Pit and improve to 5-0 and cover the cheap-looking price of 2 pts.
FWIW, the line move from Pit opening to -3 to USF -2 should be saying something as well.
Best of Luck to all!  

TomE - You had me all the way until the end...Pitt opened at -3?? More like +3...I cant find any site or sportsbook in vegas that opened Pitt at -3...help me find it.      

Now if Pitt really did open at -3..your whole writeup makes sense...if Pitt was +3, the book is sucking in all you Bulls backers...please send me a link where Pitt opened up at -3...Thanks

am I the only one that thinks this game goes over?

Liquorinfront (and Pokerinrear, lol)
I did all my reading on that game this morning and I was pretty sure that I saw that....somewhere. In any case, while trying to hunt down that source, I found there is an article right here on Covers "College football odds: Week 5 opening line report" which states: "South Florida (+1.5) at Pittsburgh" which is not the report I read earlier but does point in favor of what I stated.
I'm a little irritated that I can't find the -3 Pit that I read earlier... maybe I hallucinated.
Anyway, take it with a grain of salt. If I find what I read earlier I will come back to this thread and reference it.

Liquorinfront.....where I read that Pit opened -3 was on this thread...
"Sharkysden" (post #21) saying that "The Wynn opened at Pit -3 then it got bet to USF -2.5"
Doesn't mean that it is so and perhaps I should have double-checked that for myself being that it was a post and not an official source, but I can tell you I feel sooo much better now anyway that I know for sure I did in fact read it somewhere at least and that my mind did not fabricate it.
Also, there's the article here on Covers I already referenced stating USF +1.5 on an opening report....
Anyway, it's a big game for both teams and these prime time matchups really do bring out a great deal of intensity for the home team in front of their home crowd.
I would think USF should come in to this game with a big chip on their shoulders having lost 3 straight to Pit and feeling they really have something to prove. They do look to be rolling right now and this year looks like a good opportunity to break that losing streak.

Thank you Sharky for posting that link. Really bizarre comparing the various books' lines and the times they posted them. Looks like there was a lot of difference of opinion on that particular line between various books but they came to a consensus after the early betting action.
I would have thought in looking at the two teams that USF should have been favored from the get-go but I guess that some of the books considered home field advantage for Pit to be the deciding factor initially.
Really strange to see such a wide variance between houses on that opening line.

SOUTH FLORIDA  - 2.5

USF first half, lets see what happens, my biggest bet of the year

TomE

How about logging in on DonBest.com.  You can see all the sportsbook, opening line, matchups, etc.  You'll see that the opening line is E & 51

USF -2.5 all day long.............

As said before, Pitt opened up as -3.. Reason why I didn't see RLM in thus game.. Pitt was lucky to have two turnovers last week by ND, other wise it wouldn't be close.. USF has great team speed, more so then ND.. Better D and a good offense, plus Pitt has horrible pass D.. BoL this week guys

Is anyone significant for USF injured hence the low spread?

BigD.. Bol to you this week bro.. Your dolphins won me some money this week!!

You musta had them punks at + or cleveland cuz those morons cost me huge amounts of large at -1. BIg D Im VERRY angry at those fish!! Aloha son!

 

My bro DRdeezyNot sure what your line was but my local had the fins at +1.5...so if my Hawaii bruddah oahuboy got them at that then he won by the hook ....If you got them for less than that then u have the right to be angry at them and ur local ....I'll always be angry at them until the start winning

I feel the Pitt offensive line will have a hard time against this USF defense as Pitt already has allowed 19 sacks this season. BJ Daniels had a terrible game the last time these 2 teams met but their running back Darrell Scott has been pretty solid this season so that might help USF and their passing game against a weaker Pitt defense.

With all those straight losses to Pitt in the past few seasons I'm hoping their weak showing against UTEP last week was because the USF Bulls was preparing hard for this match up to make sure it's not going to be 4 straight losses to Pitt.

The trend is not in favor of USF as they are 2-6 ats as a road fav but I'm hoping they come out strong, score early and often as I'm still leaning on them in the first half.

Thank you very much. Bookmarked the site.

That's great info, appreciate it. Thanks again!

UNDER-52

I know handicapping is more complicated then just comparing common opponents. But let me point out the obvious. So. Florida went to Notre Dame and won, Pittsburg lost to Notre Dame at home.

So. Florida  -2 1/2

south florida -2.5