Hello,
This is my first post on here. I have followed everyone for awhile and appreciate all of the input. My pick of the week is Iowa State +6, with a sprinkle on the money line.
For the record, I have been a life long fan of Iowa State athletics. You can see a clear culture change taking place in Ames. Their recruiting classes are better and the coaching staff is bringing a different type of player and mindset to this program. Matt Campbell is the real deal. If you pay attention to how he started his first year last season, they lost to Northern Iowa and got blown out by Iowa. By the end of the year, the had opportunities to beat Oklahoma State and Baylor at the end of those games, and kept competitive against OU.
This year, they are starting to finish those games. They have an ATS record of 4-1-1 or 4-2 depending on the number you got against Iowa. They kept Texas within a possession for most of the game and were up 10 against Iowa late, and in OT dropped a first down and maybe touchdown in the first OT and had to settle for the field goal.Despite these games, they covered against UNI and Akron, games that usually make ISU fans nervous, dominated Kansas and of course, upset Oklahoma in Norman.
Their back up QB has been solid. Reminds me of Kyle Hendricks from the Cubs. No emotion shown, just cool, calm and collected on the field. He has done a great job getting the ball to all of their playmakers. One of the best group of WR and one of the best RB that nobody talks about. David Montgomery has already drawn comparisons to Kareem Hunt and I believe still leads the nation in broken tackles.
The defense has been just as good. In the first six games of last season, opponents were averaging 235.5 rushing yards/game against ISU. In the first six games of this year, they have only given up 119 yards/game. They are ranked 23rd nationally in rush defense and only behind TCU and Texas in the Big 12.
Why I don’t like Texas Tech here:
-False wins – Houston isn’t the same since Herman left. Kyle Allen has been ineffective this season and probably shouldn’t have been starting over Postma.
-Misleading final against Ok St. - Ok St with missed 2 missed field goals and throws a 95 yard pick 6 going in for 14-0 lead.
-Tech defense still not showing enough improvement. They showed this against a high-flying WVU team. They had the chance to put WVU away and not only did they fail to, but gave up the last 29 points of the game. Now you go home to play a team that is 29th in the nation with over 35 points per game. That game against WVU is what ISU looked like last year. I think ISU is improving under Campbell, while Tech is the same under Kingsbury.
There is a lot of talk about Tech getting revenge for losing to ISU 66-10 last year in Ames. This doesn’t seem to make sense to me as you rarely see Texas and Oklahoma teams come to Ames in November. There was talk that Tech didn’t even want to be there. More concerned about getting home and out of the cold. They didn’t have a lot of stock in that game, it wasn’t a rival so I can’t see them that fired up about last year.
Add all of this up and I see a win for the Iowa State Cyclones, and definitely love Iowa State +6.
Good luck to everyone moving forward.