[dabigv13]

I think the "road game struggles" angle is a bit overplayed. In both of those games our defense still played well, and our offense has only played well against terrible defenses, namely Duke and Arizona, the two worst defenses we've played this year. I suspect that if we had played at Duke or at Arizona, we still would've had our two best offensive outputs of the season in those games.

ND is one of the best defenses in college football this year (though I'd still take ours over their's), and UW held USC's offense to 17 points and shut them out in the second half, in spite of their offense giving USC the ball 4 times. If you take away their game at LSU and at Oregon, their defense has played very well.

So let's throw out that factor.

kal has a respectable defense- they've held all the teams they've played below their season average- -10 for Nevada, -13 for ASU, -5 for USC, -14 for UCLA, - 4 for WSU. I'd say they're probably a hair below UW's defense.

Their offense is average, but with a reasonable delta, due to the Maynard factor. They put up 28 at Ohio State, 3 more than average, though OSU's defense has surrendered 49 to Indiana and 38 to Nebraska. They also put up 43 on UCLA, 21 more than UCLA normally allows. However they only put up 9 against USC, a game in which Maynard threw 2 picks and no TDs, and 17 against ASU, when Maynard went 9/28. ASU and USC are very good defenses however, both ranked above Stanford in terms of points against. Overall a bit better than UW's offense for example.

A 1.5-3 point spread is probably pretty reasonable. Sagarin ratings would have us up by 4. If we lose though, it won't be because we're playing on the road. It'll be be because we're playing a team with enough of an offense to manage a few scores and defense that isn't terrible.

[dabigv13]

I think the "road game struggles" angle is a bit overplayed. In both of those games our defense still played well, and our offense has only played well against terrible defenses, namely Duke and Arizona, the two worst defenses we've played this year. I suspect that if we had played at Duke or at Arizona, we still would've had our two best offensive outputs of the season in those games.

ND is one of the best defenses in college football this year (though I'd still take ours over their's), and UW held USC's offense to 17 points and shut them out in the second half, in spite of their offense giving USC the ball 4 times. If you take away their game at LSU and at Oregon, their defense has played very well.

So let's throw out that factor.

kal has a respectable defense- they've held all the teams they've played below their season average- -10 for Nevada, -13 for ASU, -5 for USC, -14 for UCLA, - 4 for WSU. I'd say they're probably a hair below UW's defense.

Their offense is average, but with a reasonable delta, due to the Maynard factor. They put up 28 at Ohio State, 3 more than average, though OSU's defense has surrendered 49 to Indiana and 38 to Nebraska. They also put up 43 on UCLA, 21 more than UCLA normally allows. However they only put up 9 against USC, a game in which Maynard threw 2 picks and no TDs, and 17 against ASU, when Maynard went 9/28. ASU and USC are very good defenses however, both ranked above Stanford in terms of points against. Overall a bit better than UW's offense for example.

A 1.5-3 point spread is probably pretty reasonable. Sagarin ratings would have us up by 4. If we lose though, it won't be because we're playing on the road. It'll be be because we're playing a team with enough of an offense to manage a few scores and defense that isn't terrible.