Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Bill Snyder Family Stadium, Manhattan KS

Stream: TNT

Kansas St +6½ -110 over Oklahoma St

1:00 PM EST. Road favorite is the worst role for a team coming off a difficult loss. Quantifying it is hard, because it depends on what you call a tough loss, but whether it's losing as a favorite, losing in the final seconds, or losing a game after holding a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter, no matter how the data is sliced, the answer comes out the same: the road favorite is the worst role for such a team the following week. Why that role? A team that's still a dog despite being at home is probably perceived as inferior, so there's not enough fear or concern to instill any urgency in the preparation, and there's no home crowd to spark the need for immediate atonement.

No matter how you define it, Oklahoma State's loss at Iowa State last Saturday counts. The Cowboys rallied from ten down in the fourth quarter to lead 49-48 with fifty-three seconds left, and then they handed the game back. An unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on the touchdown celebration forced them to kick off from their own twenty, Iowa State took the short field, and a thirty-four-yard field goal as time expired made it 51-49. This was as devastating as they come, and it would probably take a panel of Hall of Fame motivators to get this team off the mat this week. On rare occasions it works the other way, and the devastation fuels an inspired encore, but the early signs don't suggest that here, and the Cowboys are unbackable without a quality read that they've defied convention this week.

Now the Cowboys are being asked to do the hardest thing in the sport: get up off the mat and spot signiciant points on the road against a team nobody fears. Kansas State is at home in Manhattan, in front of its own crowd, catching a sweet price against a team that is still picking up the pieces of last Saturday. The Wildcats don't have to be the better team on paper. They just have to be the team that isn't carrying last week's loss into this week's kickoff, and at home, with a number this fat, that's more than enough.

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