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Connecticut v. Louisville College Football Predictions

Written September 23, 2008 by Jason Lowry

This weekend two of the best in the Big East are set to square off when the Louisville Cardinals take their 2-1 record, and try and hold off the UConn Huskies who come into Louisville with a perfect 4-0 record. This will be both teams first action in conference play. After a tough loss to open the season against Kentucky the Cardinals have bounced back with wins of Tennessee Tech and most recently over Kansas State. The Huskies needed an overtime win in their 2nd came to squeak by Temple, and last week had to rally to take down the Bears of Baylor. With home field playing such a big role in college football it’s likely the reason the odds makers have Louisville as 3 point favorites over the Huskies at JustBet.com.

UConn comes in as the underdog even though they have the better record, and its likely you could argue both ways on that. But for now lets just take a look at what got the Huskies to where they are. Right now the Huskies haven’t got the best out of quarterback Tyler Lorenzen, who has only 1 touchdown on the season through the air, and didn’t help matters throwing for just 125 yards and 2 interceptions last week against Baylor. Lorenzen did help his cause by running for 73 yards and 2 touchdowns, but the star of the Huskies offense remains running back Donald Brown who carried the ball 34 times for a 150 yards and 2 scores, and has already racked over 700 yards and 10 touchdowns on the season. It will be no difference this week, as the Cardinals will get a heavy dose of Brown, but what the Huskies will have to have is fewer mistakes by their quarterback, who just can’t be giving the ball to the other team.

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The Huskies defense had looked solid in their first 3 games giving up just 22 combined points, but last week they were picked apart through the air by quarterback Robert Griffin, who threw for 208 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Huskies weren’t much better against the run either allowing the Baylor rushing attack to rack up 169 yards on the ground in their way to scoring 4 offensive touchdowns against a unit that had only given up 1 all season. This week they have the challenge of stopping a Cardinals offense that seemed to figured things out after combining for 577 yards of total offense last week. Bet Huskies +3 at JustBet.com.

Speaking of that offense explosion that the Cardinals put on last week, it was led by a ground attack that gained over 300 yards. Victor Anderson led the way with 176 yards and 3 scores, while Brock Bolen carried it the majority of the time for 104 yards. The Cardinals not only ran the ball 55 times, but threw 33 times as well. Quarterback Hunter Cantwell went 22 of 33 in his way to throwing for 274 yards and 2 touchdowns. Doug Beaumont was the leading receiver for the Cardinals hauling in 9 passes for 119 yards. It should come to no surprise that the Cardinals dominated the time of possession by nearly 23 minutes.

Now in order for the offense to put up those kind of numbers with that kind of time possession you would think the defense played pretty solid, and they did for the most part. The only concern would be giving up over 313 yards through the air. The reason the clock was so lopsided was the Wildcats only ran the ball 12 times for 30 yards as a team in this one. That will not be the case this week when the Cardinals play the Huskies, who like to run the ball just as much as they do. The pass defense did create some turnovers, as corner Woodny Turenne had two interceptions last week. The defense should be rested, but they will have to be ready to grind it out this week against he Huskies. Bet Cardinals -3 at JustBet.com.

Predicted Score UCONN 24 Louisville 27

Wondering who the experts are putting their money on this weekend with their college football picks, check out who professional handicapper Jason Lowry is picking this week in the NCAA. He’ll help you beat the NCAA football odds so that you can when more with your football betting. You can also pick up more free college football picks from other handicappers.

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