WVU line one of OSU’s biggest in Big 12 play

Photo Attribution: USATSI

I shouldn’t have been surprised after WVU laid an egg against Maryland on Saturday — and Dana likely sacrificed a live walk-on in the kitchen of his hotel du jour in Morgantown at 3:30 AM on Sunday — but the 21-point line caught me off guard.

This Oklahoma State team, this Oklahoma State team, with the formerly-bad-armed QB and not-that-explosive running game and plenty of questions with the kicking game is a three-TD favorite over a Big 12 team in its own house.

But the Big 12 is bad and of course if WVU is only going to complete one pass to a wide receiver against Maryland, why wouldn’t OSU be a 41-point favorite? It’s odd, but I guess it’s fair.

Anyway, all that to say I started looking at what the biggest OSU lines have been in recent memory and did you know that of the 55 games OSU has played since 2009, it has been favored in 46 of them?

Five biggest spreads

1. Savannah State (2012[1. I couldn’t find a Grambling State line.]): -58
2. Lamar (2013): -46
3. Louisiana (2011): -38
4. Rice (2009): -33
5. Kansas (2011): -31

Of those, OSU covered Kansas in 2011, Lamar, and Savannah State. No losses among the five.

But what about the Big 12?

Five biggest Big 12 spreads

1. Kansas (2011): -31
2. Iowa State (2011): -27
2. Kansas (2012): -27
4. Kansas (2010): -24
5. Kansas State (2011): -21
5. West Virginia (2013): -21

That’s right, in the last five years the West Virginia game this Saturday is the fifth-biggest spread OSU has had — and if you look at only road games, it’s No. 3.

Looking back at that Kansas State line in 2011, what was that all about? That was the heart-attack game (or the Herbie-gonna-die game, if you would like to remember it as that).

I couldn’t find data pre-dating 2009 but I’m sure there were a few 40-point Baylor spreads back in the day.

Berry Tramel wrote in the Oklahoman this weekend that the Big 12 is bad. And it is, we all knew that, but I think it says something that this might not even be OSU’s third biggest conference line this year.

Dana’s gonna need a Red Bull IV by the third quarter on Saturday.