Thursday Night College Football: #10 Oklahoma at #6 Baylor

The first college football game on Thursday night (7:30 PM ET Fox Sports 1) features a team in Baylor who has looked more like Oregon than Oregon has so far this year.  The Baylor Bears began the season averaging 70.5 points through its first four games and are averaging 63.85 points per game on the season.  They have yet to play a ranked opponent but have demoralized their conference foes, beating down West Virginia 73-42 before winning their closest game of the season 35-25 at Kansas State, then coming home to beat Iowa State 71-7 and finally traveling to Kansas for a 59-14 victory.

Baylor brutally inflicts damage on the ground behind Junior RB Lache Seastrunk who is averaging 9.1 yards per carry leading to 869 yards on the ground.  Freshman RB Shock Linwood isn't too far behind him, averaging 8.1 yards per carry and 443 yards rushing.  While Baylor has a run to pass ratio of 1.52 with 335 rush attempts to 220 pass attempts, their passing attack is possibly the most efficient and deadly in college football.  Junior QB Bryce Petty is starting for the first time in his college career and is putting up an incredible 13.94 yards per attempt while completing 69.3% of his passing en route to 18 TD to just 1 INT.  Baylor has also limited Petty to a mere 3 sacks on the season, as the Bears can seemingly do whatever they want on offense.

 

On the other hand, Oklahoma has also had an impressive season so far with a record of 7-1, their one major letdown coming at home against Texas when they were embarrassed 36-20.  They’re coming off of a 38-20 win at home against #10 ranked Texas Tech and beat their only other ranked opponent, #22 Notre Dame, 35-21 at South Bend.  Oklahoma has had success due to a strong defense and a multifaceted rush attack which includes 66 rush attempts by 6’ 6” 252 lb monster quarterback Blake Bell.  Bell has been a capable passer, but Oklahoma as a team is only averaging 201 passing yards per game, with Bell throwing 10 TD's to 3 INT, and completing 63.8% of his passes for 7.62 yards per attempt.

 

The Spread: This game opened up with Baylor -9 and quickly jumped all the way to -13.5 before settling at Baylor -14.5.

The Pick: Oklahoma is a very good team, but I just don’t think they can hang with the Baylor Bears.  This game is at Baylor and is their first opportunity to prove to the country that they belong in National Championship consideration.  They are the most lethal offense in the country and I think they will unleash the beast in front of a national audience in what will be their biggest game of the season.  14.5 is a lot of points to lay and would look a lot nicer at -14, but due to the style points required to garner BCS votes, I see Baylor pushing down the throttle in this game.