Saturday college football and we will see the Ohio Bobcats take on the Marshall Thundering Herd at Huntington, West Virginia. The game has a start time of 12:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on CBSSN. Current Vegas odds have the Thundering Herd listed as 20.5 point favorites, while the total is set at 57.5.
Analysis: The Ohio Bobcats come in at 1-1 on the year and really haven’t played all that well thus far. They did win their opener vs Kent State, but had a bunch of turnovers in that game and barely escaped with the win. Last week they were thoroughly out played in a 20-3 loss to the Kentucky Wildcats. In that game they were outgained by 179 yards, hit just 29% of their 3rd downs, 43.8% of their passes and lost the time of possession battle by 17 minutes. The Offense was able to must just 229 yards, including just 74 on the ground and they had just 13 firstdowns for the game. On defense they were not very good against the run, allowing the Cats to pile up 232 yards on the ground at 4.5 yards per pop. The Bobcats come in ranked 109th in total offense (309 ypg) and 124th in scoring (10 ppg), while on defense they rank 58th in yards allowed (348.5 ypg) and 42nd in points allowed (17 ppg).
The Marshall Thundering Herd comes in at 2-0 on the year and have had a couple of rather easy wins so far, beating Miami-Oh by 15 in the opener and then last week they beat Rhode Island 48-7. In the game vs the Rams the Herd put up 724 yards of total offense, including 432 yards on the ground. Rakeem Cato is considered one of the better QBs in the nation and is off to a solid start this year. Although he has connected on just 57.4% of his passes, he has thrown for 524 yards and 5 TDs so far. Devon Johnson has been solid out of the backfield with 288 yards on 33 carries (8.7 ypc) this year. Overall Marshall comes in ranked 10th in the nation in total offense (578 ypg), 16th in rushing (301.5 ypg) and 21st in scoring (45 ppg), while on defense they rank 33rd in yards allowed (296.5 ypg) and 40th in points allowed (17 ppg).
Pick: The Bobcats have not looked good in the early going of the season and I don’t expect that to change here vs a very good Marshall squad that has a real shot at going undefeated this year. The Bobcats look real lost on offense right now and just will not be able to keep up with the high powered attack of Marshall, who have averaged 40.9 ppg or better the last 2 years behind super QB Rakeem Cato, who is one of the best QBs in the nation. The Herd have already averaged 45 ppg in their 2 games this year and have put up 49 ppg in their last 8 home games and hitting at least 38 is key for this play as the Bobcats are just 2-18 SU & ATS in their last 20 lined games when they have allowed 38 or more points. Let’s also note that the Herd come in with triple revenge and are looking to blowout teams to possibly sway the committee some in their fvor should the go undefeated this year. Marshall should win by at least 28 in this one.
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