Oregon vs. Stanford: Pick Against the Spread, Bet the Over

There are not many guarantees in the college football world. This week’s Stanford-Oregon game features one of them.

Both teams have the potential to win the game (for the record, I think Oregon will win), but one thing about this game is certain—there will be a lot of points.

A lot of them.

Both of these teams return almost all of their offensive playmakers from last year, including Andrew Luck, LaMichael James, Darron Thomas and Stepfan Taylor. Both of these teams also lost some of their best defensive players, including Brandon Bair, Kenny Rowe and Shayne Skov.

And this game had a combined 83 points last year.

When Vegas put the over/under for this game at 68, they were clearly looking to cash in on people who have watched the Ducks and the Cardinal dominate considerably lesser opponents.

Stanford has only played three teams with winning records this season, including 5-4 UCLA—the Cardinal gave up a combined 69 points in the other two games against Washington and USC. Stanford's rush defense may rank third in the country, but they have only faced two teams that rank in the top half of the country in rushing yards.

And Oregon’s offense is predicated on the run.

On the other hand, the Ducks' defense—which is based on speed, not power—will have a lot of trouble against Stanford’s pro-style offense. Against LSU's powerful ground game, Oregon allowed 40 points and 175 rushing yards.

Oregon and Stanford have both held their strongest opponents below their scoring averages—but this game will still feature a bunch of yards and a bunch of points.

If each defense holds the opposing offense to 80 percent of its average totals on the season, there will still be 812 yards of total offense and 75 combined points.

Unless the return of Stanford safety Delano Howell, who has missed three games with a hand injury, makes a huge impact, this game will have more than 66 total points.