Wyoming Cowboys (1-0 0-1 ATS) vs. No. 5 Texas Longhorns (1-0 0-1 ATS), Week 2 College Football, Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium Austin, Texas 7 PM EST Saturday September 11, 2010
by Jason Green of Predictem.com
Point Spread: Cowboys +28/Horns -28
Over/Under: TBA
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On Saturday night in the Lone Star State the 5th ranked Texas Longhorns face (smash) the Wyoming Cowboys, who both won their season openers, but while Texas looked good Wyoming did not. The Longhorns have National Championship aspirations and while they are much better on both sides of the ball than the Cowboys Wyoming is an up-and-coming team that was a surprising 7-5 last season and beat Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl.
Texas beat Rice 34-17 in their first game of the season, but they did not come close to covering the big 31-point spread.
Wyoming beat Southern Utah of the huge football conference of the Great West Conference and just like Texas Wyoming did not come that close to covering the 21-point spread.
Wyoming beat Southern Utah even though they were out-gained in yardage (384 to 355) and had more turnovers (2 to 0). The Cowboys had a grand total of 36 yards rushing for a spectacular 1.4 yard per carry average. Really? 1.4 yards against Southern Utah, how well will they fare against Texas? However, Wyoming does have a decent passing attack and in the win over Southern Utah they did have 319 yards through the air with 3 TD.
The Longhorns used a well-balance offense in their win over Rice, as they rushed for 197 yards and passed for 172 yards. They were 7/14 on 3rd down conversions and their defense forced Rice into making 2 turnovers.
One thing that worries the Longhorns is their rushing attack, as even though they did gain 172 yards against Rice RB’s Tre’ Newton and Cody Johnson had their problems and each averaged less than 4 yards per carry. However, they will snap out of it this game against Wyoming and each will play well.
QB Austyn Carta-Samuels had a good game in the win over Southern Utah passing for 319 yards and 3 TD and for Wyoming to have any shot at the huge upset he will have to do so again, but this time against a much better Texas defense. WR’s Zach Bolger and David Leonard are a good duo that combined for 11 catches and 192 yards in the Cowboys’ opening week win.
Carta-Samuels has his work cut out for him against a Longhorns’ defense whose strength is the pass rush and their secondary.
RB Alvester Alexander is the main back for Wyoming, but he struggled in the Southern Utah game only rushing for 40 yards and only averaging 3.7 yards per carry. It will not be easy improving upon those numbers against a solid Texas defense.
QB Garrett Gilbert leads Texas and he had a decent game against Rice passing for 172 yards, but he could not lead the Longhorns to the end zone. The defensive line of Wyoming may be the weakness of their entire team and they are very undersized.
The Cowboys’ DL and LB stud Brian Hendricks will have to stop the run and try to use their quickness to get to Gabbert. Luckily they are facing a mediocre Texas offensive line that gave up 31 sacks last season. However, with a Wyoming line that lacks size look for Texas to push them around and for Gabbert and the Texas rushing attack to have no problems piling up the yards.
The strength of the Wyoming defense is their secondary, which returns all 4 starters.
Pass protection was a major problem for Wyoming last season and that will likely not change this season. The Texas pass rush is strong so look for them to Austyn Carta-Samuels early and often not allowing him time to find his targets.
Cowboys’ RB Alvester Alexander had his problems against Southern Utah so how do you think he will do against Texas? Yeah, not well. He will have problems finding holes behind a suspect line and he will not pick up many rushing yards in this game putting even more pressure on Carta-Samuels.
Jason’s Pick to Cover the Spread: Who made this spread? 28? How about 56-7? The ROLL in a huge blowout on Saturday.
