First off: remember this is a Thursday night game, 7pm on Pac-12 Network.

Regarding the game, the Beavers only advantage is the bye week’s extra rest and home field. Utah wins every other category, most importantly coaching and execution/efficiency. Beavs are banged up and Utah can apply pressure. It’s not a good mix. Utah could have a letdown after the UCLA win. It’s hard to get up for this road game.

The teams are close and both have some issues, so turnovers will decide the game. To me, the Beavs are more apt to turn the ball over, but I’m going against my gut instinct and saying they don’t turn it over and Utah has a hangover.

30-24 Beavs

Open topic for the buy week. Discuss anything you want, ask me questions, etc.

I’ll throw out a question to get things rolling: how many games do you think the Beavs win the rest of the season?

Also, Disney’s Gameday will be in SEC country again. Considering ESPN (50bil) is 1/3 of Disney’s market cap (150bil) I don’t see this trend ending any time soon. My suggestion: boycott their amusement parks and their media. If you do need to visit ESPN for some reason (i play fantasy football there), firefox in combination with adblock, betterprivacy, and ghostery are your friends. Do not give them a cent.

1:00 PST on Pac-12 Network

Go Beavs

Thanks to last week’s game versus Cal, Colorado is putting up gaudy numbers.  The QB has almost 1800 yards and 17TDs. That being said, Sean Mannion historically has performed very well versus below average defenses, and this CO defense is up and down but overall not very good. Now, I have not watched a single snap of Buff football, so this is based on last year and the stats, but I think OSU wins this game just due to Mannion playing well versus bad defenses.

The Beavs are 4-2 in this series, but most of that was pre-1990. Just one game (last year’s 44-17 win) after 1988. They are 1-2 in Boulder, but again all old data sets.

OSU’s offense is a pass happy disaster, but I think CO is one team that can work against.

31-28 OSU