Game Analysis

OKLAHOMA (-13)  35   Kansas State  17

I was waiting for this line to go from -10 ½ to -10 so I could make Oklahoma a Best Bet. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only analytically driven person seeing value on the Sooners and that line shot up to -13. No Best Bet but I still like the Sooners to cover at a profitable percentage.

Oklahoma was much better last week than the 5 point win over Texas would suggest, as the Sooners dominated that game 678 yards at 7.9 yards per play to 437 yards at 5.4 yppl for the Longhorns. Being -2 in turnovers made the game much closer than it should have been. Despite their losses to Houston and Ohio State the Sooners are a dominant team with an offense that has averaged 7.4 yards per play with their starters in and a defense that rates at 0.3 yppl better than average when accounting for opposition.

Kansas State has a good defense that’s yielded only 5.5 yppl to 4 FBS teams that would combine to average 6.4 yppl against an average defense but the Wildcats are 0.6 yppl worse than average offensively (5.3 yppl against teams that would allow 5.9 yppl). Oklahoma can score points against good defensive teams and Kansas State is not good enough offensively to keep up. I still like Oklahoma here despite the line move and I’d consider the Sooners a Strong Opinion at -11 or less (and I’d play them as a Best Bet if the line does happen to drop to -10).