The Texas Longhorns and West Virginia Mountaineers square off Saturday in week 5 Big 12 college football action from Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
The West Virginia Mountaineers will look to build on their 33-10 win over Virginia Tech last time out. JT Daniels has thrown for 956 yards, 7 touchdowns and 2 interceptions on 64.9% passing while CJ Donaldson has a team-high 380 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns on the ground and Tony Mathis Jr. also has 272 rushing yards as well on the year. Bryce Ford-Wheaton has a team-high 27 grabs for 319 yards and 4 touchdowns while Kaden Prather and Sam James each have 200+ receiving yards as well this season. On defense, Lee Kpogba has a team-high 24 total tackles while Dante Stills has 2.5 sacks and Davis Mallinger has a pair of sacks as well this year.
The Texas Longhorns will look to rebound from a 37-34 OT loss to Texas Tech to fall to 2-2 on the year as a result. Hudson Card has thrown for 620 yards, 3 touchdowns and an interception on 66.3% passing while Bijan Robinson leads Texas in rushing with 412 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns this season. Xavier Worthy has a team-high 212 receiving yards while three other Longhorns have at least 100 receiving yards as well this season. On defense, Jaylan Ford has a team-high 37 total tackles including 24 solo tackles while Texas’ defense as a whole has 8 sacks this season.
West Virginia is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 conference games while the under is 7-2 in their last 9 games following a win. Texas is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 home games and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the under is 5-1 in their last 6 games following an ATS loss.
I get the case to be made either way here, but I’m leaning towards West Virginia with the points. If this line was under a touchdown, maybe I could go with the Longhorns, but getting more than a touchdown with West Virginia in what’s normally a tight matchup against a Texas team that’s had some defensive issues sounds like a fine play to me. I could easily see this being a 41-37 kind of game whichever way it goes, but either way has the Mountaineers covering the number so give me WVU plus the points here.