Game Analysis

Strong Opinion – KANSAS (+24)  20   Oklahoma State  38

Kansas is still Kansas when they go on the road, but the Jayhawks are not as bad as they’ve been the last couple of season and they play better on their home turf. Kansas lost their most recent home game to TCU by just 1 point and the Jayhawks should be able to keep this game within three touchdowns thanks to their good secondary.

Kansas is still horrible offensively, averaging only 15.4 points and 4.4 yards per play against FBS opponents, but the Jayhawks should be able to muster around 20 points against a bad Oklahoma State defense that’s allowed their 5 FBS opponents to average 33 points on 484 yards at 6.3 yards per play (those teams would average 5.5 yppl against an average defense). The matchup that gives us value in this game is a pass-heavy Oklahoma State offense playing into the strength of a Kansas defense that is terrible defending the run but very good against the pass. The Jayhawks have allowed only 6.4 yards per pass play to quarterbacks that would combine to average 7.1 yppp against an average defensive team. That unit held Memphis to just 5.1 yppp, TCU to just 5.5 yppp and Baylor only a mediocre 6.4 yppp last week. Overall, the Kansas defense is only 0.1 yards per play worse than average (6.3 yppl allowed to FBS teams that would average 6.2 yppl) so I don’t expect Oklahoma State to score much more than the 36.6 points they’ve averaged against FBS teams that are collectively only 0.1 yppl better than the Kansas defense.

This game is very close to qualifying as a Math Play (it would at +25) and I’ll consider Kansas a Strong Opinion at +24 points or more and as a 1-Star Best Bet at +25 points or more.