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

Raymond James Stadium, Tampa

Stream: ESPN

South Florida +3½ -110 over Memphis

8:00 PM EST.,The market has been telling you the story all week: this opened Memphis -6.5 and has been bet down to -3.5, with money coming in on the Bulls every day. There is a reason for that, and it starts with a defenSe that does not give anything away. South Florida allows 14.9 points a game, ninth best in the country, with the 21st ranked pass defense in the nation, giving up just 175 passing yards per contest. Memphis brings the 13th ranked passing attack in the country into Tampa, and it is walking straight into the one unit built to take it away. Strength on strength, and the Bulls have the home crowd behind them.

The other side of the ball is where this gets fun. Memphis cannot stop the run, ranking 98th in Line Yards and 117th in Stuff Rate, a bottom 20 run defence by expected points allowed, and South Florida's whole offence is built to run it down your throat: outside zone read, counter, slow tempo, chew the clock, keep the Memphis offence on the sideline. The Tigers come off a bye week after losing at Tulane and barely putting East Carolina away, which is not the form of a team you lay points with on the road on a Thursday night. And South Florida does not get blown out: the Bulls' three losses this season came by a combined 14 points, and they are 4-1 at home in this building. A field goal is a lot to give a team like that in its own stadium.

This game sets up as a rock fight, and rock fights are won by the team with the better defense and the running game that shortens it. Memphis will move the ball in spurts, but every USF drive that eats seven minutes is another one the Tigers do not get back, and a three point spread in a game like this is a coin flip with the home team holding the coin.

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