Posted at 8:50 AM EST

8:00 PM EST. To think only week ago, the multitudes swarmed Marshall as an 18-point home favorite in Huntington against Akron. It would be difficult to fathom this was the way of things in light of the heavy lean we have seen on Louisville and the copious volume of points the Cards are spotting as a visitor to the hosts. The market is strictly all about perception. The stock in Louisville is through the ceiling after Lamar Jackson’s five touchdowns led the Cardinals to a spellbinding 62-20 victory over then #2 ranked Florida State a week ago. Since then, the fanfare has reached extremity. Jackson has emerged as the consensus frontrunner for the Heisman and Louisville has begun to be penciled in as a College Football Playoff qualifier.

Couple Louisville’s big win with the fact that Marshall was embarrassed at home last week by a heavy pooch in the Akron Zips and numbers like this will begin to appear. However, the offering here is a fallacy. If we were to change the variables around a bit we could easily find Marshall being spotted just a touchdown. How is this so? Take away an impressive margin of victory for Louisville, combined with Marshall winning and covering as opposed to losing horrifically and we can easily arrive at that station. Marshall is almost always a baby face when they are at home but the points they were spotting to Akron was yet another reinforcing principle of psychological perception. While Marshall never should have been spotting 18 points to Akron, that was a direct result of Akron being smashed by Wisconsin on the road and Marshall entering the game with a perceived home field advantage. Nevertheless, the Herd were untested in 2016 and the result against Akron proved that. The angle of psychological perception will once again be the influential storyline in this contest. Is Louisville worthy of this billing? Time will tell but if the Herd get their offense going at home under the lights, they can certainly challenge and force Louisville to replicate the proficiency we saw against a clearly overvalued Florida State squad that should have had a loss to their name going into that contest. Nevertheless the result generates pandemonium and much of the public are willing to pay a hefty price for the Cards. We have never been of that school of thought, as we are all about finding value in the numbers and trust we have found it here. 

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