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No. 11 Iowa State (5-0) at West Virginia (3-2)
Date: Saturday, October 12
Time: 8 p.m. ET
TV: FOX
It’s going to be Coal Rush Night at West Virginia on Saturday, and you know what? It means nothing to me.
Mountaineers fans and players will be decked out in black. And a drone show will take place at halftime. And it’s a night game.
Translation: plenty of surface-level reasons to back West Virginia.
But, really, all that’s going to happen is that the blackout outfits will be more appropriate as a way to mourn the Mountaineers’ loss to 11th-ranked Iowa State.
The pick — Iowa State -3 (-110, Caesars)
Both teams are coming off wins, but WVU’s 38-14 victory at Oklahoma State is more interesting to me.
Sitting in a dark bar drinking $4 Heinekens, I watched the Cowboys look like an FCS team. Everything the Mountaineers did went right, and they looked almost perfect in registering 558 yards of offense, 10.56 yards per attempt, no turnovers and 6-of-7 in red-zone efficiency. You couldn’t have asked for a better road performance.
Yet, looking deeper, this was a bad spot for Oklahoma State. The Cowboys had lost two straight games against top-25 teams, while West Virginia was coming off a bye. The numbers in that situation highly favored the Mountaineers.
Now, WVU heads home after playing its most flawless game of the season against an Iowa State squad that has flown under the radar.
The Cyclones are genuinely a top team. They are strong offensively and defensively, ranking in the top 25 in EPA per rush and per dropback. They’re also 15th in opponent yards per completion (9.8) and fifth in opponent EPA per dropback.
Iowa State’s one slight weakness is run defense, an area where it has average metrics, but the Mountaineers also have been average at running the ball, ranking 66th in rushing success rate.
This will be the second-best defense West Virginia has faced all year after Penn State. In a 34-12 home loss to the Nittany Lions, the Mountaineers mustered only 161 passing yards and 3.7 yards per play.
With WVU coming off arguably its best game against a defense that matches up well with its offensive strengths, I love laying the field goal here with Iowa State against a Mountaineers team due for some regression.
Season record: 12-10, +2.05 units