Last season Texas suffered its only loss prior to the College Football Playoff to the Sooners in the Red River Rivalry. This season, the Longhorns are out for revenge, but priced as massive favorites in a huge rivalry game, not to mention a lookahead spot to Georgia on deck. Can Oklahoma keep this one within two touchdowns?
Oklahoma Sooners vs. Texas Longhorns
Oklahoma +14.5 (-110) 1-unit
Saturday (3:30pm ET) – Cotton Bowl
This might wind up being a little bit more of a “gut call” handicap compared to what I usually give out, but this is a ton of points for a rivalry game of this magnitude. The spread has now just about doubled what the lookahead line was over the summer, and for obvious reasons. Texas is just about the only team in the country at this point that hasn’t slipped up. You could throw Ohio State in there, but we’ve seen Texas play some tougher games.
At least, the perception is that Texas has played tougher games. When you dig into the schedule the Longhorns have played, it’s really just four cakewalk home victories over insignificant teams, and that road win at Michigan. The victory over the Wolverines looks more meaningless week after week, so has Texas really showed us much?
The Longhorns are the more talented team, no doubt. But Oklahoma has actually tested itself so far this season, particularly against Tennessee, followed up with a road trip to Auburn. We know what the Sooners are, and they aren’t among the nations elite. But I’d argue we still don’t know what Texas is, and that unknown makes this a pretty good spot to grab 14.5 points.
Then you throw in all the other factors surrounding this game, and it makes it much easier to stomach fading Texas. The neutral location, the history of the rivalry, oh … and that Texas actually plays the biggest game of their season next week. This is a massive lookahead spot for the Longhorns, who host Georgia next Saturday night in one of the games of the year.
I’m going to make Texas prove itself in this spot, with plenty of factors working against it.
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All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.
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