Not only is that the name of a great song by Megadeth (actually its ‘Holy Wars…the Punishment Due’) but its the unofficial name given to the rivalry between the Mormon Church owned BYU and what passes for a ‘secular school’ in the Beehive State, the University of Utah.  This rivalry is officially contested for what is known as ‘The Beehive Boot’.  I’ve looked for as many opportunities as possible to go against Utah this season not because they’re a bad team, but because they’re just not a very good pointspread team.  And their pointspread struggles this season give us good line value here as BYU and Utah renew their rivalry in Provo, Utah:

UTAH AT BYU

As we mentioned above, Utah is a good football team but not a good pointspread team this year since they don’t have the explosive offense required to cover big numbers.  Now we get them as an underdog in their big in-state rivalry game against BYU.  This rivalry has historically been an underdog dominated affair and with the quality of the Utah program now as close to BYU’s as it’s ever been the points are an even bigger premium.  The underdog in the Utah/BYU series has covered 9 of the last 12 meetings.  More significantly, this has been a series dominated by the road team.  Utah has a 10-7 edge in the L17 games in the series, but is 6-2 straight up and against the spread on the Cougars’ home field.  BYU QB Max Hall gets all of the ink, but Utah made life miserable for him a year ago with 5 interceptions.  Utah has a very competent QB of their in Jordan Wynn who might not put up the big numbers of his counterpart down in Provo but is a better game manager and doesn’t have Hall’s tendency to make boneheaded throws.  The Utes play good ball control offense and will be able to eat up the clock and grind out a victory.

PLAY UTAH +7′ OVER BYU