Caleb Wilfinger
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These are a couple of teams trending in opposite directions heading into this one, with the Louisville Cardinals sitting at #11 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, while Virginia is having a season to forget to this point. The Cardinals are massive favorites at home and they still need to win with style points in order to maintain a very outside shot of making the College Football Playoff. How will Thursday’s game play out? Let’s get into it.
Here is my Virginia vs Louisville Same Game Parlay for Thursday’s matchup, which will be televised starting at 7:30 pm ET on ESPN. Also, be sure to check out our full Virginia vs Louisville predictions.
Louisville -20.5 (-110)
Over 50.5 (-110)
Jack Plummer Over 214.5 passing yards (-110)
Same Game Parlay odds: +596
One of the benefits of Same Game Parlays, of course, is that you can correlate the plays. That is some of the plan here, as a Louisville victory certainly correlates with Jack Plummer going over his passing yards and probably correlates with the over.
Louisville Cardinals -20.5 (-110)
Louisville has a lock on second place in the ACC standings, and with only this game and a trip to Miami remaining on the conference slate, the Cardinals are in great shape to make an appearance in Charlotte for the ACC title game. Louisville has back-to-back victories by more than 20 points, and the Cardinals are averaging more than 40 points per game at home. For the Cavaliers on the other side, the season on the whole has been a struggle. The bright spot was a stretch that included an upset win at North Carolina followed by an overtime loss at Miami 2 weeks ago. However, the ‘Hoos came back to reality last week when they were smoked at home by a very pesky Georgia Tech team. Louisville has hit its stride and with the 12th-ranked total defense in the nation, the Cardinals should put the brakes on anything the Cavaliers try to get going. Look for a massive win from the home favorite.
Over 50.5 (-110)
Virginia has struggled on defense all season long and Louisville has a powerful, well-balanced offense with Jeff Brohm at the controls. The Cardinals can run the ball effectively with one of the best running backs in the ACC, and their passing attack has also been potent when needed. There is not a lot of reason to expect this UVA team to slow down the Cardinals attack, especially since Virginia ranks 126th in EPA per rush and 119th in early downs EPA per CFB-Graphs. On the other side, the Cavaliers’ offense did see consistent success against Miami and North Carolina, so I do think they can get to 17 points in this one. Look for a 40-point effort from Louisville and Virginia should do just enough to get us over this number.
We have NCAAF picks for all the biggest games this week
Jack Plummer over 214.5 passing yards (-110)
Jack Plummer hasn’t always needed to sling the ball all over the field, especially in recent weeks. The Cardinals made it a point to lean on their running game and defense against Virginia Tech and Duke, but those are a pair of defenses that excel in the secondary, ranking 20th and 30th respectively in EPA per pass. The same can’t be said for a Virginia defensive unit that just got shredded by Georgia Tech and will be at a severe talent disadvantage against a Louisville offense that should flex its muscles in this one. Plummer has easily cleared this number in 6 of the Cardinals 9 games this season, so let’s back this passing attack to bounce back on Thursday.
