West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Louisville Cardinals Preview and Pick

In the latest Game of the Year of this college football season, the West Virginia Mountaineers visit the Bluegrass State for a bout with the Louisville Cardinals in a battle of unbeatens Thursday night at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.

WV and Louisville are two of the last six undefeated teams in Division 1, and both are ranked in most Top 5s, making Thursday’s match-up of great importance in the race for a spot in the BCS championship game.

But actually, these two teams are only tied for 2nd place in the Big East Conference; they both trail first-place Rutgers by a half-game.

These two teams played one of the great college football games of last season. The Cardinals built a 24-7 fourth-quarter lead, but allowed the Mountaineers to come back and tie the game at 24. West Virginia then outlasted Louisville 46-44 in triple OT.

The Mountaineers outrushed the Cardinals 281-182 that day, while Louisville QB Brian Brohm went 31/49/277 with a couple of TDs.

In their most recent outings, WV beat Connecticut 37-11 as 23-point road favorites 12 days ago, while the Cardinals defeated Syracuse 28-13 as 17-point road chalk 11 days ago.

The Mountaineers are 4-2 against the spread this season, while Louisville is 4-3 vs. the number.

These two teams have played one common opponent this season. WV beat Syracuse 41-17 as 25-point home chalk two weeks ago, while the ‘Ville, as mentioned above, beat the Orange 28-13 as 17-point road favorites 11 days ago.

West Virginia, which leads D-1 in rushing, is outgaining opponents on the ground by a 319-89 yards-per-game average.

The Cardinals, who rank 2nd in D-1 by averaging 496 yards of total offense, are outrushing foes by a 216-75 YPG margin, even after losing great RB Michael Bush for the season back in Week 2 to a broken leg.

QB Patrick White helped engineer the Mountaineers’ comeback against Louisville last season as a redshirt freshman. The next week, White took over as the starter. Since then, WV is 12-0 straight up and 9-2 against the spread.

This season, besides running for 619 yards and nine TDs, White is hitting at a 69% completion rate and owns a 6/5 TD/INT ratio.

Brohm missed a couple of games earlier this season after dislocating his thumb on his throwing hand. In two games since coming back, Brohm has completed 60% of his passes but the Cardinals have scored a total of (just) 51 points vs. Cincinnati and Syracuse and failed to cover the spread in both games.

The Sagarin PREDICTOR ratings at USAToday.com rank the Mountaineers 5th at 91.0, Louisville 8th at 89.0.

The Cardinals opened up as 2½-point favorites for this game, but that number has been bet down to 1 ½ and less at some sportsbooks , while the total has stayed steady at right around 56.