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Posted at 9:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

CINCINNATI +120 ML over BYU

Nippert Stadium – Cincinnati, OH

8:00 PM ET. This is one of those lines that stops you cold and makes you check your screen twice. To the naked eye, it looks completely backwards. BYU is coming off one of its most complete performances of the season—a 44–13 demolition of TCU where the Cougars controlled every facet from start to finish. Cincinnati, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction. A ranked team not long ago, the Bearcats have now dropped two straight. They were favored by six against Arizona and lost outright, and the week prior they were completely dismantled in primetime by Utah in a 45–14 rout. Optically, everything screams that BYU should be laying a full touchdown here. Yet the market hangs a short number. That alone should set off alarms.

Narratives will push squarely toward the Cougars. You'll hear all week that BYU still controls its playoff path, that if they run the table and get another crack at Texas Tech, they could still slip into the field. You'll hear about Kalani Sitake being a coaching mastermind. That's all sentiment—and sentiment is precisely what creates inflated prices on ranked teams like the Cougars. And yet, they are ranked laying less than a field goal even with that considered. Think about it.

When a top-ten caliber team is laying only a short number to an unranked opponent—especially one on a losing skid—it is a giant red flag. Oddsmakers are signaling that BYU is in a dangerous spot. This is a road game in an animated setting at Nippert Stadium, where Cincinnati typically feeds off its home crowd and plays with aggression from the opening whistle. Cincinnati’s slide has distorted their true potential. The line once again points us directly towards this idea. When a line makes no sense, you always follow the signal, not the sentiment. Everything here points toward a live home dog ready to ambush a ranked opponent in typical late-November fashion. Cincy for the W.

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