Fiesta Bowl Free Pick

The Ohio State Buckeyes have had an up and down year but they still find themselves in one of the biggest bowl games in the BCS, the Fiesta Bowl, on Monday night.  The Buckeyes will start Terrelle Pryor at quarterback.  Pryor, the most highly touted freshman in college football this season, has improved every game.  That makes Ohio State a dangerous team against the spread tonight for sports betting fans and the BetOnline online wagering spread has reflected that.  Since the line opened a couple of weeks ago, the spread has slowly begun to lower from the original 10 points.  One of the reasons is Pryor.  Another has been the overall poor play of the Big-12 in bowl games this season, Missouri and Nebraska won, but two of the supposedly better Big-12 teams, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, both lost straight-up as online college football betting favorites.

But Texas isn’t Oklahoma State or Texas Tech.  The Longhorns have a good defense to go along with their fantastic offense.  The offense, led by Big-12 player of the year Colt McCoy, is about as solid of an offense as football betting fans are likely to find in college football.  McCoy is a phenomenal quarterback and Coach Mack Brown is as good as anyone in the nation in getting his team ready for big games.  Against the BetOnline online betting spread, Texas was virtually unbeatable this season going 9 and 3 with all three losses against the spread coming in a three game stretch against Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Baylor.  Straight-up the Longhorns are 11 and 1 including a win over the Oklahoma Sooners.

Here are the BetOnline Sportsbook betting odds for this game.

Ohio State Buckeyes                         + 8  – 110                     + 260               O  51 ½  – 110

Texas Longhorns                               – 8  – 110                      – 320                U  51 ½  – 110

Here are a few online wagering trends that might help us find a good online bet in this game.

The Ohio State Buckeyes are 4 and 1 against the spread in their last 5 games overall.

The Ohio State Buckeyes are 23 and 8 against the spread in their last 31 games overall.

The Texas Longhorns are 6 and 0 against the spread in their last 6 non-conference games.

The Texas Longhorns are 7 and 2 against the spread versus a team with a winning record.

This game is going to come down to how well Texas’s defense plays versus the freshman phenom, Terrelle Pryor.  Ohio State’s coaching staff is on record saying that they might play both Terrelle Pryor and Todd Boeckman in this game.  That’s not going to work because Pryor needs to get into a rhythm to be effective, he’s still a freshman no matter what the press has written about him, and if the Longhorns can forget about both Boeckman and Pryor’s passing ability, they can easily shut down superstar running back Chris “Beanie” Wells.

On the other side of the ball, aside from Oklahoma and Florida, Texas’s has the best offense in college football.  It all starts with Colt McCoy who rarely makes a mistake, McCoy had 32 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions while completing over 77% of his passes.

That’s the issue that the Buckeyes are going to have in this game.  They have to put pressure on McCoy or this game should be an easy one and I don’t believe that the Buckeyes will.

I actually like Texas to cover the 8 points in the Fiesta Bowl.  I understand that giving up 8 points to a team like Ohio State is a big deal and I’ve had a terrible bowl season but it’s time to make amends for it by scoring with an online bet on the Texas Longhorns to cover against the BetOnline online betting spread of 8 points.