The Big 12 slate gets going early on Saturday in Forth Worth as the TCU Horned Frogs host the West Virginia Mountaineers. Both teams grabbed their first conference win last week, and this is a key game for both teams as they try to climb out of the bottom third of the standings. TCU pulled a mild upset on the road last week against Baylor in a game that was dominated by their defense. West Virginia nabbed a win over Cincinnati in a shootout. On Saturday, I like the Mountaineers to stay in this fight, and I think they are catching too many points. I will take West Virginia +8.5.
The story for the Mountaineers is an easy one: they just have to out-offense people to win. The defense is really bad, but the offense can score with anybody. They are especially strong running the ball in a quick attack with gashing runs. The strength of TCU is their defense, and especially their pass rush, but that might not come to bear as much against the ground-based attack of WVU. On the other side, the TCU offense is not very good, but they will probably have their best offensive game of the season against this defense. Here is something worth noting: West Virginia games have gone over the game total in all 7 games, while TCU is 5-1 to the under. West Virginia should score enough to keep this game close.
West Virginia vs TCU prediction: West Virginia +8.5 (-110) available at time of publishing. Playable to +7.5.
