West Virginia at Louisville

Written by Steve Janus

This Saturday the West Virginia Mountaineers will look to keep their Big East title hopes alive when they go on the road to take on the Louisville Cardinals. The Mountaineers snapped a two game losing streak with an impressive 37-10 win over Cincinnati last week, while the Cardinals loss a heartbreaker in overtime 24-21 to South Florida. The Mountaineers are 9-2 against the Cardinals, including a 17-9 win at home last season. The oddsmakers don’t seem to think home field will help Louisville out too much in this one, as the current college football odds have the Mountaineers favored by 5 points over the Cardinals on the road.

West Virginia (6-3, 2-2 Big East): After scoring just 27 points in their previous two games, both conference losses, the Mountaineers exploded for 30 first half points against Cincinnati. West Virginia piled on 419 yards of total offense, including 245 yards on the ground, and defensively they held a pretty good Bearcats offense to just 281 yards.

Noel Devine led the way with 77 yards and a touchdown on the ground, and backup Shawne Alston added 75 yards on 17 carries. Geno Smith really struggled in the Mountaineers two previous games, throwing for just 338 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions. While Smith had just 174 yards last week against the Bearcats, he finished with four touchdowns to just one interception. It will be interesting to see how the offense plays on the road against a pretty good Louisville defense, that comes in ranked 15th in the country allowing just 308.5 yards of total offense a game.

Louisville (5-5, 2-3 Big East): The Cardinals really have to feel like they should have won last week. They outgained the Bulls 328 to 259, and held South Florida to just 2 of 14 on third down conversions, but gave up 100 yard kickoff return, botched a punt, and had two turnovers.

Backup quarterback Justin Burke threw for 146 yards and three touchdowns to just one interception, and Bilal Powell rushed for 140 yards on 31 carries for his sixth 100+ yard performance this season, but when the offense needed just a couple of inches on fourth down in overtime, the Cardinals couldn’t make things happen.

Moving the ball against West Virginia this week figures to be a challenge for the Cardinals, as the Mountaineers come in with the fourth ranked defense, allowing just 253 yards a game. Louisville is very capable of winning this game, but has to play better on special teams and win the turnover battle.

Looking at the Odds: I don’t think either offense is going to be able to do much of anything in this one, and that has me leaning heavily towards the home town Cardinals in this one. The Cardinals are 5-1 ATS in their last 6 games following a ATS loss, while the Mountaineers are just 1-7 ATS in their last 8 games following a SU win of more than 20 points. My final score prediction is West Virginia 24, Louisville 23.

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