NCAAF Week Five - Oregon State Beavers vs. Utah Utes

The Oregon State “Davids”, aka the Beavers, travel to Utah to take on the 15th ranked Utes in a Thursday night game that actually means quite a bit. Oregon State upset the number one ranked Goliath that is the USC Trojans last Thursday and now gets to see if they can make it two in a row against ranked opponents.

The Utes have been pretty good this season going 5 and 0 straight-up and 2-1-1 against the spread. This includes huge victories versus Michigan, UNLV and Air Force. Utah is one of those online betting teams that, for some reason, no matter how many changes they may go through after a single season, are excellent money makers.

Even though Oregon State secured that huge victory against the USC Trojans, they haven’t been that stellar versus the BetUS NCAA online betting spread. They are 2 and 2 ATS so far this season. They are also 2 and 2 straight-up. Oregon State will have to remember that a victory against USC is great, but there’s still a lot of football to be played this season. One victory does not make a great college football program.

Here are the BetUS Sportsbook betting odds in this game:

Kick-off: 10/2/2008 9:00 pm est.

Oregon State Beavers + 12 - 110

Utah Utes - 12 - 110

Here are a few online wagering trends that might help us find a good online bet in this game:

The Oregon State Beavers are 4 and 1 in their last 5 games versus a team from the Mountain West Conference.

The Oregon State Beavers are 9 and 3 against the spread in their last 12 games overall.

The Utah Utes are 8-3-1 against the spread in their last 12 games overall.

The Utah Utes are 7-3-2 against the spread in their last 12 games at home.

Utah is favored in the game because of their 5 and 0 record. The victory versus the Michigan Wolverines was nice but it pales in comparison to what the Beavers did to USC less than seven days ago.

How good is this Beavers’ team? On paper they don’t look that great, but here’s the catch - - if Oregon State has figured out how to get their spread offense going, then they could definitely be one of the better offensive teams in the nation. This team has a lot of speed and might have found a true freshman star in Jacquizz Rodgers. Rodgers racked up 186 yards on the ground against that USC defense.

Could he repeat that against Utah? I don’t see why not. If Utah comes out on fire, then the Beavers have the talent to stick with them. Twelve points seems like a lot of points to give up in this game.

I have to go with Oregon State in this game. They might not be the better team, but they are the best wager at this point since they are the team receiving points. I’ll take the points and make an online college football bet on the Oregon State Beavers to beat the 12 points spread in their Thursday game versus the Utah Utes.