Showcase stat preview: #3 Utah an Underdog at USC

Though it’s not a battle of ranked titans…Saturday night’s Pac 12 showdown featuring #3 Utah and unranked Southern Cal is one of the most intriguing matchups of the season. If you’re looking only at the polls…it’s supposed to be a mismatch. After all, it’s #3 vs. unranked! But, the betting markets don’t see it that way. At press time, USC is -3.5 points at home.

So…not only is the unranked team the favorite…but they’re favored by more than the traditional value of home field advantage in football. The markets are suggesting that USC is the better team! The polls are SO FAR off, in the collective mind of the market, that #3 in the nation is actually worse on paper on a neutral field than an unranked opponent.

Can that be possible?

Certainly. If the #3 team is undefeated because they’ve played a very weak schedule…and the unranked team has losses to national powers…then it’s very easy for something like that to happen within a tight sample size. Let’s check out the schedules. Jeff Sagarin of USA Today typically does a good job of ranking schedules:

• Utah has played the #6 toughest schedule in the nation

• USC has played the #11 toughest schedule in the nation

There’s certainly a margin of error here…but Sagarin gives a slight edge to the Utes in a year where BOTH teams are playing tough schedules. Very close to even in the big picture…and certainly not a case where Utah is padding its record against nothing but cupcakes. Utah is 6-0, USC is 3-3, and they’ve played comparably tough schedules.

Okay…what if the undefeated team keeps squeaking out nailbiters while the unranked team lost some heartbreakers. That’s the case ESPN’s website was making in a post co-authored by Sharon Katz and Mark Schlabach.  Katz said:

“First, USC has a number of close losses. Utah has a few close wins.”

I’m not sure when losing 41-31 became a “close” loss. USC did that TWICE! At home to Stanford…and on the road at Notre Dame. Tough opposition to be sure. But, this isn’t about USC suffering “close” losses! They did drop a relatively close one to Washington 17-12….in a game where they were 1 of 13 on third downs and turned the ball over three times. It was a horribly played loss that rocked the program.

Utah’s close wins? They beat Michigan by a touchdown, and California by six. Those are ranked teams and the Utes won by more than the margin of home field advantage. USC’s played two games against ranked opponents and lost both by 10.

Schlabath then only confused matters with this:

“I don’t need a computer to tell me that USC is going to upset Utah at the Coliseum. The Trojans need a psychologist to convince them they can do it…The Trojans might look better on paper, but the Utes look like a much tougher team. Utah has already won two road games this season, beating Fresno State by 21 points and Oregon by 42. Sure, the Utes have had a couple of close victories, but they came against much-improved Michigan and Cal. The Trojans were probably a more talented team last season, too, but Utah walked away with a 24-21 upset of then No. 20 USC in Salt Lake City. Utah is at a point where it knows it can win, while the Trojans are still trying to figure out how to close games.”

USC winning wouldn’t be an “upset” since they’re favored. And, Schlabath followed with a fairly passionate case for Utah winning the game outright because it’s “tougher” and “knows how to win.”

Part of the reason this game is so intriguing is because observers are having such trouble getting their bearings!

Why is USC Favored?

Let’s start with the simplest stuff? Why is USC favored at -3.5 as an unranked host?

• They’re seen as having a lot more talent, regardless of the won-lost records. Professional bettors place a lot of weight on talent. Note that the game opened at -3 and was bet up to -3.5 fairly quickly. The public doesn’t bet quickly. At least some “sharp” influences liked USC at the field goal.

• They’re the more publicly known team, and more likely to be bet by the public when that money hits the board. That’s typically the case in national TV games anyway…cheap home favorites get a lot of public attention. Sportsbooks want to be positioned against that projected influx of public money over the weekend.

• Utah just doesn’t have much of a betting “constituency” beyond the relative handful of investors who think the way Schlabach does about “toughness” at the point of attack, or who like taking defensive-minded ball-control underdogs in big games. There IS a constituency…but it’s much smaller than USC’s.

Now…let’s talk stats.

• Utah is a run-based team, rushing the ball on 59% of their offensive plays

• Utah’s smash-mouth approach is designed to control the ball, run clock, and keep their own high quality defense fresh.

• USC’s defense let Stanford rush for 195 yards on 4.0 yards-per-carry, in a game where they allowed 474 total yards, 67% on third down conversions, and 39.5 minutes of possession time.

• USC’s defense let Notre Dame rush for 214 yards on 6.1 yards-per-carry, in a game where they allowed 476 total yards and FOUR touchdown drives of 75 yards or more. You know why ND didn’t rack up a big time-of-possession edge? They were scoring too fast! Those four long TD drives lasted 0:15, 2:26, 3:00, and 3:15.

USC may have a lot of great individual talent. If the defense doesn’t start tackling better and getting stops when facing quality, this will be another loss where all that talent stands around watching the season go down the tubes.

By now, the case for Utah has been made very clear. Just keep doing what they’re doing and exploit USC’s weaknesses. The case for USC is that their talent is overdue to explode against an opponent who isn’t well-suited to play catch-up. If USC can explode early enough to take Utah out of its preferred style…then the hosts can win and cover. Utah does get sloppy when forced to pass. In that six-point win over Cal, Utah threw two interceptions, turned the ball over three times, and was only 4 of 17 on third downs. Remember how quickly USC exploited the mistakes Arizona State was making in the Trojans’ only win of the past month…that 42-14 laugher in Tempe?

Very volatile scenarios here. Utah has a simple pathway to a straight up win if they can continue to execute. If USC can disrupt that offense and derail the train…then the market price is going to seem fairly small when measured against the final scoreboard.

Enjoy the game! Back with you next week.

Jeff Fogle is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas. He writes about college football analytics for The Saturday Edge. He also writes about college and pro football, college and pro basketball, and MLB on his blog StatIntelligence. You can follow Jeff on Twitter @JeffFogle.