The State of Washington Report
kkirk
Senior Member
Greeting from the Pacific Northwest. For those unfamiliar, I try each week to give insight into the three major football teams from the state of Washington: WSU Cougars, UW Huskies and Seattle Seahawks. We pick everygame ATS, lines taken from scoresandodds.com at the time I post this. I believe I was 18-14 last year, but have to go back and check.
On to this weeks picks:
UW:
Huskies look to be very strong on offense this year, with Heisman candidate and potential #1 NFL draft pick Jake Locker back as a 5th year senior quarterback. Huskies also pretty talented at receiver and running back. The big question mark is on the other side of the ball. Huskies lost most of their D line from last year (to graduation and another guy got into some criminal trouble and was kicked off the team) and were weak in the secondary as well. Lots of those guys back, but that may be the problem rather than the solution. The end of last year was encouraging for the D as they shut out WSU (grain of salt there) and then held Cal to just 10 points in a big win to end the season. Lots of talk about a winning record and a bowl game and Huskies have also gotten committments from two very high profile high school guys in the area in recent days, so lots of general good feelings around the program these days.
Dawgs travel to BYU today and have clear advantage at skill positions on offense, especially QB. BYU has lost 15 games since Mendenall took over and 12 of those saw the opponent score more than 30 points. I believe the Huskies can do that today, with some inexperience on the BYU D-line. The total is 56 and UW favored by 1, so oddsmakes see this as a 28-27 kind of game. I think it goes way over, though we don't pck totals here but I think the Huskies win a wild one, and I could actually see the Huskies winning in a semi-blowout.
PICK: UW -1
WSU:
Cougs recently named the worst program in college football by some magazine, I forget which, and it's hard to argue with that (many will remember that I'm an alum as well, but we check our emotions at the door each week as we sit down to write the Report). Cougs lost 67 starts to injuries last year, 20 more than any other team, so the idea of Regression to the Mean hopefull kicks into gear this year in regard to injuries. Cougs do have some weapons this year on offense, most notably sophomore Jeff Tuell at QB and a couple of speedy young receivers. James Montegomery is also back after a calf injury in an ealry game last year cut off a decent start to the season and almost killed him as well (no kidding).
The Cougs travel to Stillwater to take on Ok St., a return game for Ok State's visit to Seattle two years ago. Ok St. had a disappointing year last year, but went bowling and are probably an 8 win team this year and really gearing up for what could be an outstanding 2011 season. They have lots of inexperience to overcome and fortunately have 3 softer opponents to open the season to get some experience before taking on Tex AM in week 4. I have to admit I thought this line would be in the -21 to -24 range but it opened at -13 1/2 and quickly went to 17 and is now 17 1/2. My first inclination was to lay the points but after seeing that big move AND listening to several media people AND friends talk about Ok St. being thier "pick of the week" I'm go to go contrarian here and take the 17 1/2. I'm hoping for one of two scenarios. First, the Cougs hang around by taking advantage of a few Ok St. mistakes and are able to keep the final under the number as Ok St. pulls away in the 4th quarter. OR I'm hoping Ok St. jumps out early and then begins to experiment a bit and Cougs score late in the game for a back door cover. Or the Cougs just get crushed and I'm way off in my thinking. Either way, I've got a 2 out of 3 chance to be right, right?
PICK: WSU +17 1/2
On to this weeks picks:
UW:
Huskies look to be very strong on offense this year, with Heisman candidate and potential #1 NFL draft pick Jake Locker back as a 5th year senior quarterback. Huskies also pretty talented at receiver and running back. The big question mark is on the other side of the ball. Huskies lost most of their D line from last year (to graduation and another guy got into some criminal trouble and was kicked off the team) and were weak in the secondary as well. Lots of those guys back, but that may be the problem rather than the solution. The end of last year was encouraging for the D as they shut out WSU (grain of salt there) and then held Cal to just 10 points in a big win to end the season. Lots of talk about a winning record and a bowl game and Huskies have also gotten committments from two very high profile high school guys in the area in recent days, so lots of general good feelings around the program these days.
Dawgs travel to BYU today and have clear advantage at skill positions on offense, especially QB. BYU has lost 15 games since Mendenall took over and 12 of those saw the opponent score more than 30 points. I believe the Huskies can do that today, with some inexperience on the BYU D-line. The total is 56 and UW favored by 1, so oddsmakes see this as a 28-27 kind of game. I think it goes way over, though we don't pck totals here but I think the Huskies win a wild one, and I could actually see the Huskies winning in a semi-blowout.
PICK: UW -1
WSU:
Cougs recently named the worst program in college football by some magazine, I forget which, and it's hard to argue with that (many will remember that I'm an alum as well, but we check our emotions at the door each week as we sit down to write the Report). Cougs lost 67 starts to injuries last year, 20 more than any other team, so the idea of Regression to the Mean hopefull kicks into gear this year in regard to injuries. Cougs do have some weapons this year on offense, most notably sophomore Jeff Tuell at QB and a couple of speedy young receivers. James Montegomery is also back after a calf injury in an ealry game last year cut off a decent start to the season and almost killed him as well (no kidding).
The Cougs travel to Stillwater to take on Ok St., a return game for Ok State's visit to Seattle two years ago. Ok St. had a disappointing year last year, but went bowling and are probably an 8 win team this year and really gearing up for what could be an outstanding 2011 season. They have lots of inexperience to overcome and fortunately have 3 softer opponents to open the season to get some experience before taking on Tex AM in week 4. I have to admit I thought this line would be in the -21 to -24 range but it opened at -13 1/2 and quickly went to 17 and is now 17 1/2. My first inclination was to lay the points but after seeing that big move AND listening to several media people AND friends talk about Ok St. being thier "pick of the week" I'm go to go contrarian here and take the 17 1/2. I'm hoping for one of two scenarios. First, the Cougs hang around by taking advantage of a few Ok St. mistakes and are able to keep the final under the number as Ok St. pulls away in the 4th quarter. OR I'm hoping Ok St. jumps out early and then begins to experiment a bit and Cougs score late in the game for a back door cover. Or the Cougs just get crushed and I'm way off in my thinking. Either way, I've got a 2 out of 3 chance to be right, right?
PICK: WSU +17 1/2
Comments
--Wynn
totally agree, the play calling was a joke.