A pair of ranked teams will match up on Saturday afternoon when the No. 14 Cincinnati Bearcats host the No. 22 Army Black Knights on Sept. 26.
Cincinnati is coming into the game 1-0 following last week’s season-opening victory over Austin Peay. The Bearcats rushed for 276 yards in the game in a 55-20 victory. Allowing 20 points and 353 yards to Austin Peay probably isn’t the best performance for Cincinnati, but it can be chalked up as season-opening jitters depending on how the Bearcats’ defense performs over its next few games.
Army is on a roll right now taking down its two opponents by a combined score of 79-7 to improve to 2-0. The Black Knights beat Middle Tennessee 42-0 in the season opener and took down Louisiana-Monroe 37-7 on Sept. 12. Army rushed for 340 and 439 yards in its two games this season.
Cincinnati and Army haven’t played each other since 2004, a 48-29 win for the Black Knights.
Game Time/TV Channel/Streaming
Saturday’s game will start at 3:30 p.m. ET at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. This game will appear on ESPN.
Point Spread, Totals, Odds, Trends
Point spread: Army (+14) vs. Cincinnati
Point Total: O/U 45.5 (-110)
Money line: Army (+450), Cincinnati (-625)
- Army is 5-2 against the spread in its last seven games.
- The total went under in four of Army’s last five games.
- The total went under in six of Cincinnati’s last seven games.
- Cincinnati is 10-0 straight up in its last 10 home games.
The Best Bet
Betting on whether a team can defend the triple option is an incredible thing to handicap. This game was added less than a month ago and while you’d think that would be plenty of time for a team to prepare, we’ve seen two teams already struggle mightily to stop the Army offense. The Black Knights have given us no reason to think they should lose by more than two touchdowns to this point of the season. Let’s go with Army plus the points.
Pick: Army +14
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