West Virginia Mountaineers vs Cincinnati Bearcats Prediction, Odds and Picks for Saturday, 11/09/24

Following a mutual bye week, the West Virginia Mountaineers (4-4) will make the short journey to Cincinnati to take on the Bearcats (5-3). The Mountaineers won their previous game against the Arizona Wildcats 31-26, which ended a 2-game losing skid – both home losses against ranked teams in Iowa State and Kansas State. Meanwhile, the results in Cincinnati’s 3 most recent games are the polar opposite. The Bearcats lost in Colorado 34-23 last time out, but won the 2 games prior at UCF and at home against Arizona State. For what it’s worth, West Virginia was a 5-point home favorite when it hosted Cincinnati last year, a game in which the Mountaineers won by 21 points and the Over cashed by 10 points. This time around, Cincinnati is the home favorite with a bit of a higher total.

West Virginia will likely be without starting quarterback Garrett Greene for the 2nd consecutive game. Greene sustained an upper-body injury in the loss to Kansas State, thrusting backup quarterback and redshirt sophomore Nicco Marchiol into his 2nd career start. Marichol played well against a poor Arizona defense albeit 2 turnover-worthy plays, but he and the West Virginia offense are likely to face more resistance from this Cincinnati defense – a unit that ranks 69th in PPA and has yielded just 3.21 points per scoring opportunity since Week 6. The Bearcats have been especially good at limiting big plays recently, as they are 22nd in opposing explosiveness outside of garbage time in the last 5 weeks.

On the other side, Cincinnati’s offense has not been anything to write home about since its 44-41 loss at Texas Tech. The Bearcats scored just 19 points at UCF in Week 7, 24 points against Arizona State in Week 8 and 23 points in Week 9 at Colorado. Furthermore, they have averaged less than 3.5 points per scoring opportunity since Week 6, and they rank 104th in red zone scoring rate on the season as a whole. Pace of play will be key in this matchup. Both West Virginia and Cincinnati are outside the top 100 in seconds per play, which makes me think this total is just a bit too high given West Virginia’s awful turnover margin and Cincinnati’s inconsistency offensively on a down-to-down basis (81st in PPA since Week 6) and in scoring situations. I lean under in this Big 12 matchup.

West Virginia vs Cincinnati prediction: Under 56.5 (-110) at the time of publishing. Playable to 56.

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