NCAA Football Line – USC Hosts Cal in Pac-10 Showdown

The NCAA Football Line is set between the California Golden Bears and the USC Trojans, with USC coming in as a slight 2 ½ point favourites. It’s been a tough year for first year coach Lane Kiffin, as although they started out 4-0, they’ve dropped two straight on the final play of the game.

Cal comes in on a much better note as they beat a very good UCLA squad 35-7 last weekend, but haven’t been able to find much success on the road where they’ve gone 0-2 on the year. If the Golden Bears are able to use last week’s win and come into USC and win on the road, they’ll be handing the Trojans their first three game losing streak since 2001.

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California Golden Bears vs. USC Trojans (Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – Los Angeles, CA)

Saturday, October 16th – 3:30 PM ET

TV: FSN

USC’s losing streak started with a home loss to Washington, who beat them by the narrowest of margins, 32-31. They then took on Stanford last week, with an opportunity to take out a nationally ranked conference foe, but dropped that one 37-35, again on a last second field goal, pushing their Pac-10 record to 0-2. And looking at the scores you can tell that their defence isn’t giving them much of a chance to win any ball games, which is a trend that has followed this team all year. They are giving up 428 yards per game coming into this week’s contest, and in both their recent losses they were leading heading into the final minutes before the defence allowed both Washington and Stanford to put together game winning drives.

NCAA Football Betting Line:

California – PS +2 ½ (-110) ML +120

USC – PS -2 ½ (-110) ML -140

Total – 54 

Other than a poor showing versus Nevada, the Cal defence has been solid all year. They have held opponents to under ten points in four games this year, and showed they can do it against an elite team as they were able to limit UCLA to just 144 total yards. I wanted to go on there, but take a second to think about what I just said, 144 total yards is ridiculous, especially at the college level.

And it’s been against the run and the pass that the Golden Bears have been good. Last week they held the Bruins to just 26 yards on the ground, which is almost unbelievable when you think about it. And in this game, I think that their defence is going to be the difference as although USC possesses a strong offensive team, they’ve showed they don’t have the ability to stop anybody. They may be able to put up more than ten points, but when they put the game in the hands of their defence, will they be able to step up?

Here are some NCAA Football Line trends for this matchup:

• Under is 6-0 in the last 6 meetings.
• Golden Bears are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 meetings in Southern California.
• Under is 4-1 in the last 5 meetings in Southern California.
• Favorite is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 meetings.
• Golden Bears are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 meetings.
• Road team is 5-1 ATS in their last 6 meetings.

Looking at the trends and the recent play of these two teams and you’ll see that Cal is the right play this weekend. I still think this one is close, but I see Cal going into USC and beating the Trojans outright.

NCAA Football Line Prediction: California (+120)

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