Angle Plays for Colorado-UTEP

[GoSooners]

The angle plays are 6-2 on the bowl season after the beating the Beavers laid on the Mackeral Snappers last night.

Here's a few angles on the Houston Bowl with Colorado-UTEP

Colorado has the #56 offense and #54 defense
UTEP has the #68 offense and #58 defense
Colorado has faced the tougher schedule #20 to UTEP #106
Colorado is 1-4 in bowls ATS under Barnett
The Buffs are 2-4 ATS against bowl squads this season
Mike Price is 3-2 ATS in bowl games
Colorado was 4-2 ATS away from home this year.
UTEP was 3-2 ATS away from home
Colorado was favored in 3 games this year going 1-2 ATS
UTEP was 3-1 ATS as a dog
Colorado is #3 on special teams and UTEP #19
UTEP outyardaged foes by an average of #47 ypg this season
Colorado was outgained by an average of #99 ypg
Colorado has the better defensive and offensive lines, but not by much
Colorado has the better RB with their good all-purpose back Purify
UTEP has the better QB with QB Jordan Palmer (Carson Palmer's brother) and ranked #25 in pass effeciency.
Coaching advantage goes to Mike Price. His record speaks for itself. Barnett was the undeserving coach of the year in the Big 12. The award should have gone to coach Fran of Texas A&M.

The intangibles goes to UTEP who is playing in WAC country down in Houston. So the crowd should be solidly behind them. Unlike the Iowa St. fans who cream in their jeans if they get to travel anywhere after Christmas, Colorado fans would stay home even if the game was played next door. And Mike Price's bowl record is much better than Barnett's.

PREDICTION: This bowl should be called the Disgrace Bowl with all of the off-field problems these two coaches have faced the last couple years. Being a Big-12 fan I've watched Colorado play all year. And I can tell you they could have just as easily been 3-9 as 7-5. They've been about as lucky as you can get in many games this year. Their only close game with a good Big 12 foe came against Texas A&M, who moved the ball at will on the Buffs, but did just about everything they could do to lose a game and still won it in OT. Their wins down the stretch came against a very beatup Kansas team. A K-St. team who lost half of their defense in the game before with Mizzou and Nebraska who well... hasn't had any defense all season. The real Colorado team is the one who lost at home to OSU 42-7, Texas 31-7 and got spanked by OU in the Big 12 championship 42-3. UTEP on the other hand has a solid 8-3 record and have played 4 bowl teams including a good win on the road against a tough Fresno team. So this UTEP team has shown they can play with some of the better teams. Especially with a good size offensive line who paves the way for their outstanding pass game. The fans should be solidly behind them in Houston, which is WAC member Rice's home town. With the Buffs superior athelets this isn't a strong play. But the intangibles win out and I'm looking for Mike Price to get another bowl win in his stripclub going cap. My small wager goes to UTEP +3

Good luck to all!

 

[Deb12]

Hey GoSooners...

First of all, nice work on your part!!

I hope you don't mind me placing my thoughts on this game in your thread, I actually replied to someone else in another thread that asked my opinion of this game and will simply re-post what I have already written concerning this game in a thread that is already started...thanks Deb
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With regard to the Houston Bowl, the sentimental favorite has to be UTEP who came out of nowhere this season with new head coach Mike Price leading the way, Price is of course very experienced in Bowl games but I don't know if that will be enough to overcome the talent gap that exists between these teams.

My personal power ratings project this to be a Colorado 9 point win, but keep in mind that power ratings do not take into account the intangibles and power ratings do not consider individual matchups, personally I would lean a little towards UTEP with the offered points because the line is now UTEP +3.5 after originally opening up at UTEP +2.

The better route to take might be with the O/U which is now at 58 after opening up at 59...I am leaning towards the UNDER as my projection calls for a total of 49 points to be scored.

UTEP's triggerman is none other than Carson Palmer's little brother Jordan and he hasn't had a bad year with a TD to INT ratio of 24 to 16 and the UTEP defense under Mike Price has played very well this year and especially the UTEP defensive secondary, overall the UTEP defense has forced 30 T/O's on the season.

Personally I am not in love with this game and think there are better fish to fry, however, for the sake of value I am going to play a small parlay on UTEP +3.5 and UNDER the total.

take care and good luck!!

Deb<!-- / message -->

 

[GoSooners]

Deb, any imput on your part is much appreciated. That's what I'm here for is to take both negative and positive critisms to come to a logical conclusion. As stated above I'm in agreement with you that this game requires a small wager rather than a large play. Usually Power Plays win out with me. I played the power plays with the Virginia-Fresno game and lost the game by the slimmest of margins. I played the U Conn-Toledo game on the intangibles and won. So as you can see it works both ways in the crazy bowl season.
One more thing that I didn't add in my angle plays is the deal about UTEP losing their last game with Tulsa. I believe that loss is helping keep this game at 3 or above on the line. Which could be a favor to us. Being here in Oklahoma I can tell you that I followed Tulsa close. They were a much improved team at the end of the year and were playing at the level that they did last year when they went 8-4 with vitually the same team. Anyway my point is UTEP was already bowl bound when they played Tulsa and really didn't have anything to play for. While Tulsa was determined to end their season on a positive note for next year. Colorado does have a pretty stout defensive line. Which is going to give UTEP trouble in the rushing dept. Right now I'm leaning toward the under play too. GL

 

[Deb12]

Hey GoSooners..

Thanks for the reply, as for me I just checked my outs and saw the line on the UTEP game is now up to +4 with an O/U of 58....I went ahead and placed a small parlay on UTEP +4 and UNDER 58.

I am thinking of also playing the UNDER in the battle of OSU's but will in all likelyhood stay away from that game altogether, in my opinion there are way too many intangibles in that game to measure which makes the game a REAL gamble!!

take care and good luck!

Deb

 

[GoSooners]

Deb, I'm still studying up on the OSU-OSU game. It's very close IMO. I'm kinda leaning toward Ohio St. What's funny about the line in that game is a 5th place finisher in the Big 12 South is favored by 4 over a team that was no worse than second or third in the Big 10. Very unusual IMO. The Big 10 is a much better conference than that.
By the way I got UTEP at 3.5. I should have waited a little longer. I also have a small wager on the under at 58.

 

[GoSooners]

I bumped my line of +3 up to what i bet it at which is +3.5. But you can get it at +4 as of this writing.

 

[Fishhead]

As most of you know, this is my top bowl play of the year.

Thanks for the write-up

http://forum.therx.com/showthread.php?t=249439

 

[Deb12]

Hey Fishhead...

I personally did not know that UTEP was your "top bowl play of the year", but that does make me feel a little better with regard to my dinky little parlay on UTEP +4 and the UNDER 58!!

good luck!

Deb

 

[hardcorecap]

Im with you on UTEP. I felt better after seeing some of the good people here on it too. so far its a close game. By the way. DEB, you really seem to know your stuff. I do enjoy reading your write ups, as you include lots of great insight. Shoot me an email, curious who you like in tomorrows BC- NC game.