Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (0-1 1-0 ATS) at No. 6 TCU Horned Frogs (1-0 0-1 ATS), Week 2 NCAA Football, Amon Carter Stadium Fort Worth, Texas 7 PM EST Saturday September 11, 2010
by Jason Green of Predictem.com
Point Spread: Tenn Tech TBA/Texas Christian TBA
Over/Under: OFF
In a game that may be one of the biggest mismatches this Saturday in college football the 6th ranked TCU Horned Frogs take on the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles, who are in Division I-AA. You gotta give the Golden Eagles some props, as they are getting ready for their Ohio Valley Conference season by playing solid team, as they faced, then, #17 Arkansas in their opening game of the season and this week face a TCU squad that has BCS game aspirations.
TCU is coming off a win over a top 25 team in their opening game and play Baylor of the Big 12 next week, but they cannot take Tech for granted even though they match up better with them on both sides of the ball.
Since TCU is not in a BCS conference they have to win all their games this season to have any chance at a BCS game and possibly a national title shot. Because of that they will likely run up the score against Tech so this game may get ugly.
Last season Tennessee Tech was 6-5, but they have a tall task in this game not to win, but to not get blown out.
In the opening college Saturday last week TCU beat, then, #24 Oregon State 30-21 and Tennessee Tech lost to, then, #17 Arkansas. Tech played a sloppy game against Arkansas committing 11 penalties for 61 yards and they cannot do that against TCU, as the Golden Eagles cannot give the Horned Frogs easy yards.
The Horned Frogs did beat the Beavers last week by 9 points, but it should not have really been that close since they out-gained OSU 453 yards to 255 yards, but they had 2 turnovers. They killed the Beavers in time of possession almost 2 to 1 (39:23 to 20:37) and they dominated the Beavers on the ground with 278 rushing yards while the Beavers only had 73.
TCU RB Ed Wesley rushed for 134 yards with 1 TD against Oregon State and he averaged an impressive 7.9 yards per carry in the game. That is not good for a Golden Eagles’ squad that gave up almost 200 rushing yards to Arkansas.
The Horned Frogs have a solid QB in Andy Dalton, but he did have a great game against Oregon State with only 175 yards passing and 1 TD and 2 INT’s. He may have a better game against a Tech squad that gave up 323 passing yards to Arkansas.
QB Tre Lamb, who had 99 yards passing in the loss to Arkansas, leads the Golden Eagles. He may have a tough time finding his targets against TCU, as the Horned Frogs have a big line and Lamb is only 5’9″. The TCU LB and DL unit feature a bunch of big hitters and they will likely have a field day in this game.
The leading rusher for the Golden Eagles in the Arkansas game was QB Cass Barnes, who had 31 yards averaging only 3.9 yards per carry. Against Arkansas Tech had 5 guys that had at least 4 carries and nobody averaged over 4 yards per carry and Barnes is the only one that averaged over 3 yards per carry.
The Horned Frogs run defense is solid, as they held Heisnam candidate RB Jacquizz Rodgers of Oregon State to only 75 yards rushing on only 4.2 yards per carry last week. Look for TCU to dominate on defense in this game and not allow many yards on the ground against the Golden Eagles.
Jason’s Pick to Cover the Spread: As stated before this game may get ugly, as the Horned Frogs’ offense can move the chains through the air and on the ground and the Tech defense will not be able to stop them. On top of that TCU has a solid defense and they will dominate the Golden Eagles and not allow them to pick up yards. The Horned Frogs will easily win this game and even though there is no spread TCU should win this game by a HUGE margin.
